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Engineering Leadership

The Best Idea Wasn't Mine. It Wasn't the AI's Either.

What happens when we stop directing AI and start thinking together?

For years, we've been learning how to give AI better instructions.

We write more detailed prompts. We establish requirements, define constraints, and describe exactly what we expect.

When the output isn't quite right, we refine our instructions and try again.

And when AI finally produces what we envisioned, we call that success.

But I've started questioning something fundamental about this approach.

What if we're limiting what AI can contribute by insisting that we already know what the solution should look like?

Recently, I had an experience that changed how I think about working with AI.

It involved a technical project, several challenging conversations, and two different AI models.

What made the experience remarkable wasn't the technology itself.

It was how the thinking evolved.

Who Takes the Controls?

I've been thinking about the pilot sitting in the cockpit of a modern airliner.

For much of a commercial flight, automated systems can manage the aircraft's path with extraordinary precision. The pilots aren't just passengers. They monitor, communicate, anticipate, decide, and intervene. But the relationship between the expert and the machine has changed. The person with the greatest responsibility is no longer necessarily the one performing most of the routine work.

That reminded me of something I recently saw in software engineering.

I gave two AI coding agents the same product vision: build a small application that helps people lend belongings to one another. One agent had access to a formal architectural modelling and verification system. The other worked independently, using code, tests, and ordinary engineering documents. Both built complete applications. Both handled a substantial follow-up change. Both produced software that was remarkably close in quality.

I had expected the architecture tools to make a more noticeable difference. Instead, I found myself questioning something larger than architecture.

If an AI can do the work of an expert, what is the expert for?