Matt Pocock: Agents need a "black hole of success," not a pit
mattpocockuk · x · 2026-10-28
Matt Pocock argues the classic "pit of success" — well-designed APIs, tests and lint rules gently guiding humans toward correct code — doesn't translate to the agent era. Humans get annoyed when the pit gets too steep, imposing a social contract on how much pressure you can apply. Agents feel no annoyance, so he proposes a "black hole of success": an inescapable event horizon where constraints on agents are cranked to the maximum, making great code inevitable.
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