AI and the Industrial Revolution
Cheap Tokens, Cheap Attempts
Cheap generation doesn't make engineering judgment obsolete. It makes it the scarce thing, and the first Industrial Revolution shows why.
AI and the Industrial Revolution
Three essays on what the first Industrial Revolution can tell us about what agentic AI is doing to software engineering, argued from economic history and evidence, not prediction. The through-line: agents don't out-think engineers, they change the economics of attempting, the location of skill, and who captures what follows. Each essay stands on its own. In order, they run from the individual engineer, to the codebase, to the organisation.