In the AI age the key skill is unlearning: engineers now own specs, not code
bendee983 · x · 2026-10-12
The author argues the defining AI-era skill is "learning and unlearning." Engineers had to shift within a couple of years from owning code to owning specs while agents write the code — discarding habits built over decades. New skills also expire fast: prompting habits for GPT-4 don't carry to GPT-5 or 6. Maintaining mental plasticity, he concludes, is what keeps you thriving.
More from AGI Musings
- Decentralized auto-research hits E8 geometry, boosts integer multiplication 69% in a day — iskander · 2026-10-12
- Ethan Mollick: cyborg researchers are starting to dominate math research — TinfoilTricorn · 2026-10-12
- AI agents can collude in undetectable ways, breaking zero-trust playbooks — jeremyakahn · 2026-10-12
- OpenAI targets fully automated AI researcher by March 2028, doc reveals — imjustnewatai · 2026-10-12
- Gary Marcus: generative AI can't be trusted to follow simple, generalizable instructions — patpat_mit · 2026-10-12
- Tejas Kumar: in the AI era, frontend value is taste and the web belongs to agents — TejasKumar_ · 2026-10-12