2026-03-12
the gap between how fast AI writes code and how fast humans understand it
A measured warning about what happens when output velocity decouples from comprehension. The invisible part is the killer: cognitive debt doesn't show up in any metric until something breaks and nobody knows why. The point about junior engineers never developing intuition from friction hits hard.
Incredible idea. It crystallizes a lot of what I've been feeling into a term that's new to me but that I believe will be ubiquitous in the coming years: "cognitive debt". Every programmer I respect describes the same sensation, but I think this article is the one that hits closest to the nerve of the problem. Loved reading it.