{"slug": "agents-of-our-own-illiteracy", "title": "Agents of Our Own Illiteracy", "summary": "A software industry commentator warns that over-reliance on AI agents for coding, reviewing, and learning is eroding developers' literacy and agency, potentially diminishing their intrinsic value and salary negotiating power. The piece argues that dependence on automated tools turns developers into passive commanders rather than active makers, threatening long-term professional autonomy.", "body_md": "Agents of Our Own Illiteracy\nJuly 10, 2026\n\nI worry our software industry is drifting towards illiteracy.\n\nWe don’t want to read changelogs. Dependabot just opens a PR we mindlessly merge.\n\nWe don’t want to review PRs. Codex can digest them, highlight concerns, and write the alterations.\n\nWe don’t want to code up prototypes. Claude Code can explore five ideas before breakfast.\n\nWe don’t want to learn what new capabilities our platforms have. We want to watch a video of someone reading and download a set of Markdown skills.\n\nWe want to be the commander surrounded by sharp secretaries who make sense of our half-thoughts.\n\nWe want to make important things but then expect a ghostwriter to put it into words.\n\nWe automate so much because we’ve added so many processes, yet we’ve become less involved in the process of learning and making.\n\nLosing our literacy leads to losing own agency.\n\nWhich leads to the loss of your intrinsic value and long term potential to negotiate a decent salary.\n\nWe become dependent on monthly subscriptions to make things.\n\nWe get into a situation where without training wheels we always fall off our bike. And we no longer own the bike, the bicycle for the mind. We rent it.\n\nHow can we improve our literacy? These AI agents can be incredible research assistants, with a wealth of information available to extract with the right question.\n\nBut to know the question is to have a deeper understanding of what you are making.\n\nTo write a prompt is to transcribe my thoughts. Are my thoughts getting both shallower and deeper from the process?\n\nDo I understand what I’ve made? Am I able to debug it? If I see a stacktrace will any of the lines be of familiar files? If a user has a question is my reflex to ask an agent?\n\nWhy is it that customers ask me? Because of the brand I own or am a custodian of?\n\nWhat are customers paying for? Because I claim to be able to help this brand and be accountable for parts of it? Yet is the agent accountable to me?\n\nIf a brand becomes a logo hoisted above a troupe of agents then who owns the brand?\n\nWe outsourced the manufacturing of hardware and now we eagerly do the same with software. Perhaps one day it’ll make a fascinating history book for my agent to read to me.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy", "canonical_source": "https://royalicing.com/2026/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy", "published_at": "2026-07-10 23:33:03+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-10 23:35:09.095436+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-agents", "ai-ethics", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Dependabot", "Codex", "Claude Code"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-of-our-own-illiteracy.jsonld"}}