Opinion

AI doesn’t threaten intelligence.
It exposes how little judgement most systems have.

A few months back, I sat in a review where a junior engineer presented an architecture proposal. Clean diagrams, well-structured document, confident annotations. The first questions were answered fluently. Then we pushed into the edge cases: what happens when this service changes, how does it behave under unexpected load, why this particular approach over the alternatives?

“I’d need to check.”

Three times in the same conversation. The work looked senior-grade. The reasoning wasn’t there. When I asked what had informed specific choices, the honest answer eventually came: “Claude suggested it and it seemed right.”

I didn’t blame them. But I kept thinking about what had actually happened in that room.

I was never into the whole American dream thing. Even as a kid, something about it felt… off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it back then. But as I grew up, it became painfully clear: their values, their way of life, their self-image; it just never clicked with me.

A question has been raised about the future of the architect role with the rise of AI. If human-built software (and SaaS, as claimed by Microsoft’s CEO) is going away, what happens to the practice of architecture?

I’m rarely optimistic (the curse of architecture, I guess), but I feel safe.

Imagine, if you will, that building a SaaS application is like constructing the perfect sports car. Sleek, powerful, a marvel of engineering.

I, of course, am Jeremy Clarkson in this scenario — the architect with the vision, the genius behind the wheel. My engineers? Well, they’re supposed to be the pit crew, precision-tuned experts ready to make my dream a reality.