The speed trap

AI helps you move fast. That's the selling point, and it's real. But speed has a side effect that nobody talks about enough: you accumulate decisions faster than you evaluate them.

Over time, those decisions turn into technical debt. Not the obvious kind. Invisible debt.

What makes this debt different

Traditional technical debt is relatively easy to spot. Messy code, outdated patterns, obvious duplication. You look at it and you know something needs to be cleaned up.

AI-generated debt looks completely different. The code often appears clean, well structured, and functional. Nothing looks broken. Your linter is happy. Your tests pass. The PR looks fine.

But the issues are hiding in places you're not checking:

Inconsistent patterns across the codebase

Unclear ownership of logic

Subtle duplication of concepts rather than code

Mismatched abstractions that each work individually but don't fit together

The system works.…