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The technical debt of others

A developer argues that engineers must read AI-generated code before deploying it, comparing the risks to those of third-party dependencies. The developer insists that taking responsibility for released code requires understanding it, whether written by humans or large language models.

read1 min views1 publishedJul 26, 2026

On two previous occasions I have written on the risks posed by the inclusion of third party packages, irrespective of the technology stack, and some measure that can be taken to guard a project using NPM packages.

In recent weeks I have become aware of discussions on whether developer should read AI-generated code or not. Of course the answer is it depends.

For my two-penn'orth, in many environments the developer is considered responsible for the code they publish. In deed, I have long held the position that a good Software Engineer views it as their responsibility to own all the code they release. So here is the parallel I see, developers take on code developed by others at their own risk. This applies to 3rd-party dependencies in the form of packages and to code generated my LLMs.

If you don't read the generated code, how can you take responsibility, and how can we call ourselves engineers?

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