> There are levels in this work. Level 1 is the typing. Syntax, semicolons, the years memorizing pointer arithmetic and which header file the function lives in. Level 2 is the verifying. The harness. The test suite. The reflex of rejecting the ninety attempts that almost work and shipping the one that does. Level 3 is the deciding. What to build at all. Which architecture survives contact with the real world. (...)

> AI lowered the cost of Level 1. It did not touch Levels 2 or 3.

I feel like AI is firmly taking over Level 2 too. But more importantly, is that why no one vibecoded Photoshop? I think it's probably because it took >1 million man-hours to build it, so even at a 100x speedup it's not a very attractive project.

Agreed. Very firmly in level 2, and going well into level 3 too.

For example, I've had quite a few situations when I asked Claude Code to do some manual work for me, assuming it would do manual edits across several files, but it instead decided to write a script, and even a small test suite for it. It's a small encroachment so far, but I don't see any limitation for it gradually taking on actual product decisions.