该论文认为,AI智能体可能使软件从固定代码转变为按需规划和构建的系统,代码不再是核心产物。传统软件预先固化规则,而智能体在运行时将意图转化为行动,把代码视为一次性工具。真正转变是从“预设计行为”到“协商式行为”,系统随条件变化不断解读目标。但这也带来新风险:静态程序在可检查边界内失效,智能体可能因漂移、过度自信、记忆错误或逐步放大早期错误而失败。未来工程师的关键能力是定义意图、约束自主性、设计评估、检查推理痕迹,并辨别流利回复与可靠系统的区别。
AI agents may turn software from fixed code into systems that can plan and build on demand.
This paper argues that code may stop being the central artifact.
For decades, software meant frozen intent: a human anticipated a situation, translated judgment into rules, and shipped those rules into the world.
Agents disturb that bargain because they can turn intent into action at runtime, generating code as a disposable tool rather than treating it as the product.
The real shift is not from human coding to AI coding; it is from predesigned behavior to negotiated behavior, where the system keeps interpreting the goal as conditions change.