The AI machine can write better code. It can also write an interpreter which implements function calls by instantiating a new interpreter + entire standard library per function call. Or it will build a 300kloc cathedral of scaffolding and maintain that forever, never writing actual code. Or it will create a CI system that takes 2 hours to run and constantly fails, and the agent loops there all day, fixing a small bug and waiting 2 hours. (All things I’ve experienced latest frontier models do)

Agentic engineering faces all kinds of new problems that couldn’t exist before, and need experienced engineers to solve them.