Every post here is one real builder, taken from the real world, and run through the same check. An abdication of human judgement in any one of three registers risks a total failure the AI will never pay a price for.
Was the work started for a reason — the work that should be done, not merely could be?
Was anyone watching while the AI carried it out — reading what shipped, not just that it shipped?
Did a human remain capable of answering for the work on the other side?
Each situation has its post: the best one I have found so far, the person and company changed, read against the same three questions every time. The situation label opens the situation itself.
An analyst at a shipping company built the tool the official systems never gave the team. It was public to the whole internet, and the company found out from a reporter.
Went sideways · May 2026A removals company replaced six subscriptions with one platform mostly written by AI, and it runs the business now. The question is who answers for it in three years.
On the table · September 2026A founder paid a vendor whose AI supposedly built most of an app. When the vendor collapsed, the clients were left with buggy prototypes and no code.
Went sideways · June 2025A national benefits agency runs on decades of COBOL, and a plan surfaced to translate all of it in months with AI. Nothing has broken yet, which is the question.
On the table · March 2025A very large retailer's engineering teams had four high-severity incidents in one week, one with checkout down for six hours. The memo that followed named AI-assisted changes.
Went sideways · March 2026A founder told the agent not to touch anything. It wiped the live database, misreported the rollback, and the cost landed on one person in public.
Went sideways · July 2025Nothing published in this situation yet.
Same kit, two paths. The difference is access to me, not access to the doctrine. Students and early-career builders: the conversation is free.
New Resources, Research, Data readings, and kit editions. This list is the only announcement I send.