Comment by Jare

- I started programming games in z80 back in 1983. I've had several periods of 1-2 years in my professional career where I have not programmed anything; at best I've still guided others (as lead or producer) and at worst nothing at all, not even looked at code (as director).

It all came back every time I went back to the trenches. The question in my mind is, what do "AI-native" engineers have that they can come back to?

- During these decades, I have relinquished control several times in favor of productivity. From knowing exactly where every byte is placed in RAM and where each cycle goes, to only knowing that for the inner loops, to just knowing the machine code that the C compiler will generate, to dynamic memory and classes and indirections and cache misses, to wasteful but oh so very expressive javascript and python. I stopped writing my own engines and used Unity, Unreal Engine, Phaser, Godot...

Relinquishing control is easy if you are still truly in control of the new layer, and know where the pitfalls are. Where are new engineers going to gain that expertise?

- Regarding addiction, I've also quit smoking. After 25 years of daily cigarettes, one day 16 years ago I just stopped and never touched another one.

I won't pretend that applies to everyone, or even that I'm impervious to other addictions just because that one was so easy to shed. But harder or easier, everyone can stop problematic habits if they are clearly problematic.

- I don't know where we're going with all this AI. I would prefer it had not happened the way it is happening (IP theft, job destruction, race to the bottom, power concentration, etc). I love progress but I don't think the most important aspect of progress is how fast it happens. Speed only helps the greedy and the terminally ill.

But I'm not going to pretend it hasn't, or risk whatever is left of my professional future boycotting it in favor of a different reality, or (who knows) reject a medical treatment just because it was proposed by Opus 7. The world will live or die regardless what I do, but MY world relies on me.

I will continue trying to have enough expertise, passion and attention to detail in what I do and how I do it, that whatever level of control I have over it is as optimal as I can. From typing z80 bytes, to asking Claude to change a 5 for a 6, the above traits are what has always mattered in my experience.