AI makes it easier to attempt a replacement. The harder question is what the new software still owes the people using the old version.

Imagine rewriting a game engine and getting the same winner in both versions. That looks promising. Then you inspect the match record. The new engine has counted a move supplied by the software as though the AI model chose it. The game still ended, but the experiment changed.

I am exploring a Rust version of eSlams alongside its Python engine. eSlams lets AI models play games so we can investigate their decisions. That gives a rewrite a particular obligation: preserve what a result means. Which moves did the model choose? What could it see? What happened when it failed to return a usable response?

These questions make the appeal of AI-assisted rewrites more interesting to me. A replacement that once looked too expensive may now be worth attempting. We can explore a different language, remove an awkward dependency or reconsider an architecture.…