Quoting James Shore

11th May 2026

Your AI coding agent, the one you use to write code, needs to reduce your maintenance costs. Not by a little bit, either. You write code twice as quick now? Better hope you’ve halved your maintenance costs. Three times as productive? One third the maintenance costs. Otherwise, you’re screwed. You’re trading a temporary speed boost for permanent indenture. [...]

The math only works if the LLM decreases your maintenance costs, and by exactly the inverse of the rate it adds code. If you double your output and your cost of maintaining that output, two times two means you’ve quadrupled your maintenance costs. If you double your output and hold your maintenance costs steady, two times one means you’ve still doubled your maintenance costs.

— James Shore, You Need AI That Reduces Maintenance Costs

Recent articles

- Notes on the xAI/Anthropic data center deal - 7th May 2026

- Live blog: Code w/ Claude 2026 - 6th May 2026

- Vibe coding and agentic engineering are getting closer than I'd like - 6th May 2026