October 9, 2026
The AI agent decides, you choose: Addy Osmani on losing the ability to think for yourself
Addy Osmani argues that constantly choosing from an agent's suggestions weakens the ability to come up with solutions independently.
Addy Osmani
@addyosmani
Whether agents feel liberating or like a loss depends on what brings you the most joy in engineering: creating, understanding, or feeling that you matter. I've heard conflicting views from engineers about agents: some are thrilled and feel like they're on a team of all-stars for the first time, while others mourn the death of their craft and feel empty. I work with agents every day, so I understand these feelings. I don't want to take sides. I hope to help you see more nuance in this story. Too often, we're split into two camps: people who enjoy writing code and people who enjoy shipping products. I think that's a gross oversimplification. Instead of asking you to pick a side, I want to ask you to think about which aspects of the work energize you most. I think most of us have three sources of joy in our work, intertwined in different ways: - The joy of creating, or "flow": the pleasure of making something yourself and feeling that sweet moment when everything falls into place. - The joy of understanding: the pleasure of knowing your systems so well that you can sense where a bug is hiding just by looking at the files. - The joy of mattering: the pleasure of knowing that your expertise was what held everything together. Agents affect each of these aspects a little differently. That's why discussing them can be so difficult: we're experiencing different losses and arguing from different positions. The joy of creating is easy to preserve. The work simply moves up a level. You're no longer shaping every line. You're shaping the system or the factory, and the work cycle stays fast enough to enter a flow state. If you miss the old kind of flow, nothing stops you from writing code yourself. The joy of understanding is especially easy to lose, so it's important to keep an eye on it. Sometimes you find yourself trying to come up with an architectural solution that once would have come naturally, and your intuition offers nothing. Choosing from an agent's suggestions and coming up with an idea yourself are different skills. If you always choose and never come up with ideas, your ability to do so will weaken. You can't direct something you don't understand at least in broad terms. If you don't understand your own codebase, you're no longer directing the agent; the agent is directing you. You matter. Your skills are subject to obsolescence too, but you, your ability to make decisions, and especially the need for that ability have never been more important. You decide which problems are worth solving. You bring your taste and judgment to the work. You can take responsibility for the outcome. For the entire outcome, for everything you ship. Sadness doesn't mean you've failed to adapt. A sense of loss reflects an attachment to something. It's natural to feel sad when your work changes and becomes unfamiliar. Pay more attention to what makes your work yours, and nurture it.
· 35.3K views
Developers can accept ready-made solutions and stop understanding their own code. Addy Osmani sees this as a risk of working with AI agents every day.
Osmani identifies three sources of enjoyment in engineering: - Creating and entering a flow state. - Understanding a system well enough to guess where a bug is hiding just by looking at the files. - Feeling that the outcome depends on your expertise.
Creating can take a different form. Developers used to shape every line themselves. With an agent, they shape the system's design and the process of building it. Osmani argues that a fast iteration cycle keeps the work enjoyable, and developers can still write code themselves.
Understanding takes practice. Osmani distinguishes between two skills: coming up with a solution and choosing one from ready-made options. If you only ever practice the second, the first weakens. As he puts it, when developers don't understand their codebase, the agent is directing them.
Osmani doesn't see sadness about change as a sign of failing to adapt. People are attached to different aspects of their work, so they experience different losses.
In Osmani's view, developers still choose which problems to solve and take responsibility for everything they ship.