cd /news/generative-ai/quoting-florian-herrengt · home topics generative-ai article
[ARTICLE · art-93813] src=simonwillison.net ↗ pub= topic=generative-ai verified=true sentiment=↓ negative

Quoting Florian Herrengt

Florian Herrengt warns that AI-assisted programming is creating unmanageable 'cognitive debt' as developers rely on tools like Claude to fix bugs they do not understand, leading to convoluted projects that no one on the team can fully comprehend. Herrengt argues this trend is removing the middle class of software engineering, as junior and mid-level developers become dependent on AI without grasping underlying systems.

read1 min views1 publishedAug 12, 2026

But then users start to report a weird bug. It's the 4th time your team has been trying to fix it. I mean... asking AI to fix it. Unfortunately, it seems like not even Fable can figure it out.

You go talk to the person who worked on this feature.

"So where does the data come from?"

"Hmm... actually I don't know. Let me ask Claude."

You sit next to each other watching an endless wall of text appear on the screen. Neither of you has any idea whether any of it is true but Claude seems very confident. [...]

This project has become so convoluted, with so many layers and services, that no one on your team could possibly start to understand what's going on.

— [Florian Herrengt](https://blog.florianherrengt.com/ai-removing-middle-class-software-engineering.html), AI is removing the middle class of software engineering

Tags: [ai-misuse](https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-misuse), [cognitive-debt](https://simonwillison.net/tags/cognitive-debt), [generative-ai](https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai), [ai](https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai), [llms](https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms), [ai-assisted-programming](https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming)
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