The Software Pilots Manifesto
AI changed who can build software. It did not change what can go wrong.
What's Changed
- AI agents now generate working software from plain English.
- Huge amounts of software will be produced without any of the traditional quality supports.
- The tool doing the building is probabilistic: confident, inconsistent, and frequently wrong.
The Problem
- People are shipping software they cannot evaluate, secure, or maintain.
- Engineers of all levels have vital skills, but no defined role in a world where machines write most of the code.
- When AI-generated software causes harm, nobody is clearly accountable.
The Solution
1
Engineers must evolve into software pilots: skilled practitioners who oversee, intervene, and take responsibility.
2
Employers must hire for good judgment, producing specifications, and ensuring verification: not just coding ability.
3
Education must teach pilotry as a discipline: the machine beneath, the probabilistic machine above, and the human accountable for both.
Co-Signatories
We believe in the future of software pilotry.
Abhishek Chugh
Software Engineering & Product Management Lead, Ex-Google, Adobe
Julian Harris
Ex-Google PM
Luis Bruno
Ex-Google SRE
Niall Murphy
SRE: Ex-Google, Amazon, Microsoft, 4x O'Reilly Author
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