People are using AI to generate too much work because they think they know what they’re doing: A growing body of work calls this output-competence decoupling. In any previous era, the quality of a piece of work was a more or less reliable signal of the competence of the person who produced it. A novice essay read like a novice essay; novice code crashed in novice ways. AI has severed that relationship.

AI allows people who aren’t software engineers to build meaningful software. Those of us who are software engineers at companies should stop building features and focus instead on building systems that allow people on the sales team, the factory shop floor, etc. etc. etc. to ship safely. 🔗 notes from o11ycon 2026