Hot take: Ryan Dahl says coding went "100% AI written." Checking it works is now the job
SummaryNode.js creator Ryan Dahl posted on Nov. 8 that software engineering has moved to AI-written code, and that the problem of making sure it works "didn't magically disappear." The post passed 650,000 views overnight. Here's why the second half matters more than the first.
· MODEL Editors · 1 min read
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What he said. On the evening of Nov. 8 (about 8:11 p.m. PT), Ryan Dahl, who created Node.js and co-founded Deno, posted: "it's shocking that software engineering has transitioned to 100% AI written in such a short time. it's more shocking that somehow we, the SWEs, are all just continuing on as if nothing happened. It writes C++ better than I ever could, but the problem of making sure it works didn't magically disappear. we are just shipping enormously more volume at higher quality." (X (opens in a new tab)) By Monday morning the post showed about 655,000 views, 4,700 likes and 1,100 bookmarks.
Our take. The headline number is the part people will argue about. The useful part is the clause in the middle. If a model writes the code, the engineer's job is to prove the code works. That means tests you wrote or read yourself, diffs you actually reviewed, and a check in a real environment before you call it done. Shipping "enormously more volume" without that is how teams end up with code nobody can explain.
What the survey says. Stack Overflow's 2026 Developer Survey points the same way. It reports that 73% of respondents use coding assistants and agents daily, and that 48% say they trust AI when they can easily validate the answers. Familiar code (67%) and debugging or refactoring (61%) are where most respondents currently use AI, which are the places where they can check the output. (Stack Overflow (opens in a new tab))
Caveats. "100% AI written" is Dahl's own read of the field, not a measured industry figure. The survey numbers are self-reported by respondents. View and like counts are approximate and were checked on Nov. 9. Not tested by MODEL.
Disclosure: Not sponsored. No affiliate links. Not tested by MODEL.
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