1979 paper dismissed formal verification; 2026 forecast says it'll be as common as fuzzing

danbri · x · 2026-10-24

A viral side-by-side contrasts a 1979 paper arguing formal verification would never play the role proofs play in mathematics, with a 2026 forecast that verification—once limited to bespoke expert work on safety-critical code—will soon be as practical as fuzzing for nearly all production software.
The prediction sees verification maturing from "bolted-on" to "built-in", driven by LLMs as well as language design and workflow innovations, much like static types and testing frameworks.
The pairing is a striking illustration of how AI may overturn decades-old assumptions about program correctness.

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