How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt
“Cognitive debt tends not to announce itself through failing builds or subtle bugs after deployment, but rather shows up through a silent loss of shared theory. As generative and agentic AI accelerate development, protecting that shared theory of what the software does and how it can change may matter more for long-term software health than any single metric of speed or output.”
This blog post discusses how the shift from technical debt to cognitive debt is becoming a significant concern as generative and agentic AI reshape software development. Unlike technical debt, which refers to the accumulation of design or implementation choices that make software harder to understand and modify, cognitive debt is the loss of shared understanding and theory among developers about the software. As AI accelerates development, cognitive debt can paralyze teams by making it difficult to make changes without unintended consequences. The post suggests that slowing down, using practices like pair programming and refactoring, and establishing cognitive debt mitigation strategies are essential to managing this new challenge.
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