The terrifying part isn't obsolescence. It's mediocrity becoming the ceiling.

AI produces code that technically runs but lacks the thoughtfulness that makes software maintainable or elegant. The "90% solution" ships because economic pressure rewards speed over quality.

What haunts me: compilers don't make design decisions. IDEs don't choose architecture. AI does both, and most users accept those choices uncritically. We're already seeing juniors who've never debugged without a copilot.

The author's real question: what if most people genuinely don't care about the last 10%? Not from laziness, but because "good enough" is cheaper and we're all exhausted.

Dismissing this as "just another moral panic" feels too easy. The handcraft isn't dying because AI is too good. It's dying because mediocrity is profitable.

Speaking of slop..