I’ve been in my head about the new world of ‘agentic AI’. Gas towns and Wiggums, Open Claws and acquisitions. Hacker News is ablaze with AI news / think pieces from every conceivable angle.

In my corner of the world, it seems like developers are mostly on the cynical end. Mourning the death of the software engineering discipline and marking the beginning of the SaaS apocalypse. Calling out how AI is causing RAM shortages which are quickly expanding to storage, and how this is just another way that AI companies are wrestling computing from our hands.

But some are sharing their journey into this new world with enthusiasm and optimism. With the help of Claude & Codex, indie dev veteran Steve Troughton-Smith has been cranking through new apps seemingly by the dozen, including porting iOS apps to Android purely with prompts. I’ve seem similar threads from SwiftUI pro Simon B. Støvring with caveats. Just to name a few.

In my own experience, Claude has helped me ship updates to both OctoNote and fuzZzy in a matter of days after years of inactivity. There’s something incredible about sitting down with a clear product vision, a little bit of basic developer awareness, and access to Claude Opus. No roadblock seemed insurmountable.

But you can’t help but feel like there are thousands of other developers doing the exact same thing. Thousands more are taking it a step further with agent orchestration, vibe coding hundreds of thousands of lines of code on their way to the next big software scheme. It can feel overwhelming when you’re not min-maxing your own time by coordinating the machines to further your own personal ends. Especially when it feels like hardship is on the horizon for professional software engineers.

All of this brings me to my question. Which is essentially this:

What are we, as software craftspeople, doing about this existential threat?

Good people should be making software

Simply put, if software is exponentially more build-able by more people than ever before, then more of us should be collectively building the products and platforms that we want to use and build for.

I think this goes for everything. Social media, email & documents, file sharing, chat & collaboration, operating systems & app stores. If we have this window where AI use is relatively cheap (to the end user) and can accelerate smaller (better, more “good”) dev teams to build exponentially bigger products much faster, then that’s what I would love to see happen.

I guess I just wish that I was hearing stories about new software startups using AI to rebuild Discord or Gmail or whatever with an ethos that supported privacy, sustainability, and openness. Less stories about the existing powers that be weilding the threat of AI to hurt us.

We should be building collectively, and holding the line

I don’t know if the answer is ‘open source’ in a true sense - maybe it is - but I just feel like we should building this new software in the open in a way that it can’t be abused in the name of pure profit for the powers that be.

I think we should find a way to share our AI-accelerated code with each other - the software craftspeople & workers - so that we can compete and build new things that can compete with the giants.

And we should celebrate people who value that mission, and hold strong.

Policy

Ultimately, we need to regulate. It’s very disturbing to me how the rise of Gen AI is happening in an era where our leaders are actively ignoring the threats posed by these billionaire-backed would-be monopolies. It’s very dystopian, very cyberpunk in the most drab and dangerous way possible.

We need leaders who can identify how to support the average person as AI has immediate impacts, and keep an eye on the horizon for what this technology is going to be and what our place in the new future is.

Summatim

I’m no expert, and mostly just had to get this off my chest. Still processing a lot, and surely will for a long time moving forward. If you read this and felt anything, let me know on Mastodon.

AJ Kueterman

Well Then, Who's Building It?

What are we, as software craftspeople, doing about this existential threat?

Good people should be making software

We should be building collectively, and holding the line

Policy

Summatim

Other Links / References