One month left on Anthropic CEO's prediction that, "in 12 months, we may be in a world where AI is writing essentially all of the code." Myself and the folks I talk to have already been there for awhile. businessinsider.com/anthropic-ceo-ai-90-percent-code-3-to-6-months-2025-3
The new No Man's Sky × Wall•E mashup looks great youtu.be/tPuqNYu5kBs
Added a /prove skill to my prove_it library. It pushes Claude Code to go beyond merely analyzing source and running tests to demonstrate the code is working.
Example: it spun up a complete example project and ACTUALLY proved my cached test runner works github.com/searlsco/prove_it
We ordered a wood chest that arrived with cosmetic damage. After logging the damage in their customer support interface, it prompted me to start a chat with their AI virtual assistant.
What happened next:
Turns out that negotiating with a rules engine is way easier than negotiating with a human tasked with operating a rules engine.
So basically, all Wayfair did was add a chatbot to the end of their existing "Report a Problem" interface that will give customers more money if they ask for more money. What a world. 🌍
My prove_it CLI is already proving valuable. Just watched Opus 4.6 complete an hourlong rewrite without me… ONLY because 6 times prove_it's own script & agent hooks blocked Claude from prematurely declaring victory. It's letting me focus on WHAT, not HOW github.com/searlsco/prove_it
Mitchell Hashimoto, founder of Hashicorp and, more recently, Ghostty in a post on his relationship with AI coding:
Instead of giving up, I forced myself to reproduce all my manual commits with agentic ones. I literally did the work twice. I'd do the work manually, and then I'd fight an agent to produce identical results in terms of quality and function (without it being able to see my manual solution, of course).
This was excruciating, because it got in the way of simply getting things done. But I've been around the block with non-AI tools enough to know that friction is natural, and I can't come to a firm, defensible conclusion without exhausting my efforts.
But, expertise formed. I quickly discovered for myself from first principles what others were already saying, but discovering it myself resulted in a stronger fundamental understanding.
- Break down sessions into separate clear, actionable tasks. Don't try to "draw the owl" in one mega session.
- For vague requests, split the work into separate planning vs. execution sessions.
- If you give an agent a way to verify its work, it more often than not fixes its own mistakes and prevents regressions.
More generally, I also found the edges of what agents -- at the time -- were good at, what they weren't good at, and for the tasks they were good at how to achieve the results I wanted.
I recorded an interview on the freeCodeCamp podcast a few days ago saying the same thing. Namely, that this reminds me of every other time programmers have needed to learn a new way to do something they already know how to do some other way. When I was teaching teams test-driven development, I always had to encourage them to force themselves to test-drive 100% of their code without exceptions so they're forced to actually learn the difference between, "this is hard because it's a bad tool for the job," and, "this is hard because I've not mastered this tool yet."
Over-application of a tool is an important part of learning it. And it applies just about every time we're forced to change our ways, whether switching from Windows to Linux, a graphical IDE to terminal Vim, or from Google Drive to a real filesystem.
Either you're the type who can stomach the discomfort of slowing down to adopt change, or you're not. And many (most?) programmers are not. They're the ones who should be worried right now.
My friend Eric Doggett became a Disney Fine Artist a couple years back and he's currently being featured at EPCOT's 2026 Festival of the Arts. Each day this week, he's holding court to talk to people about his work at a pop-up gallery just outside the Mexico Pavilion. Myself and a few other friends ganged up on him this afternoon to lend our moral and financial support by showing up and buying a few pieces.
I really like the painting I picked up. It's a semi-subtle ode to Big Thunder Mountain, a celebration of Walt's love of trains, a not-so-hidden Mickey-shaped rockface, and a tiny nod to the goat.
If you're a local, swing by and say hi to Eric—he's great! If you're not, check him out as @EricDoggett on YouTube—the videos of how he works are pretty cool. I immediately hung it in my office / studio when I got home, because Eric's audio engineering talents are a big reason why Breaking Change sounds as good as it does!
Video of this episode is up on YouTube:
Elon has combined 3 of his 4 businesses and everything makes sense. Also, I went to Japan and all I came back with was another weird story about animal sperm. Other stuff happened too, but let's be honest, it's the typical AI schlock you've come to expect from this decade.
Write in with your own takes to podcast@searls.co. Please. Really! Do it.
Citations needed?
"3 things: reusable rockets, AI via satellite; and a real-time free speech platform. Rockets, space-based AI, and free speech. Rockets, AI…are you getting it? These are not three separate companies, this is one company, and we're calling it SpaceXXX" spacex.com/updates#xai-joins-spacex
I do not miss thinking hard jernesto.com/articles/thinking_hard
Whether or not the Xcode agent is any good (I'm dubious), the fact Xcode itself is exposing first-party MCP tools is great news—trying to get Claude/Codex to do fucking anything right in iOS is agonizing. developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/111428/
