AI makes paying down tech debt so cheap that delaying it becomes the optimal strategy

surmenok · x · 2026-09-11

surmenok argues that when AI makes paying down technical debt dramatically cheaper, the best strategy is to delay paying it off longer. His case: AI tolerates lots of debt well — duplicated code gets found, kept consistent, and covered by parity tests; overly complex functions get fully read, edited, and path-tested; leaky abstractions get usage-traced and impact-checked; unused code just sits there, well tested and ready to use.

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