“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry   AI gives us an unprecedented ability to add. The danger is that we begin to mistake accumulation for value.  Delivery is only the beginning (or be mindful of catabolic collapse)  Every new system and feature adds obligations: it must be operated, secured, monitored, documented, integrated, upgraded and eventually replaced or retired. Hackers love a juicy target, even if it’s that half-forgotten service that people are unsure whether it’s safe to turn off or not. If we respond to “cheaper” software creation by producing far more software, we may accumulate obligations faster than we acquire the capacity to discharge them. Under the weight of the proliferation of software, the organization starts to sacrifice its ability to build what it will need next to react effectively to changing market conditions and opportunities.  This is the dynamic described by  catabolic collapse .

Jack Vanlightly

AI dramatically lowers the cost of building software, but that doesn't mean teams should build more — it means they should build bigger. The post warns against 'lowering the value threshold' (finally shipping low-priority features because they're now cheap) and instead argues for 'raising the ambition threshold' (using AI to attempt what was previously too risky or complex). Drawing on the concept of catabolic collapse, it argues that every shipped system carries ongoing maintenance obligations, and indiscriminate AI-assisted output can accumulate technical debt faster than organizations can manage it. The real competitive risk is that while one company burns down its backlog, a competitor uses AI to build something genuinely transformational.

Raise the ambition threshold — Jack Vanlightly

Delivery is only the beginning (or be mindful of catabolic collapse)

Lower the value threshold vs raise the ambition threshold

Tokenmaxxing (more tokens, more productivity!)