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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 18, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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AI is business class. What I figured out recently is that while AI is making my development more comfortable it doesn't make me more productive. For me dev work has always been primary problem solving and writing the code secondary. So I spend more time on logic, understanding and occasionally debugging. And human brain does seem to have limited capacity for decision making and understanding per day. It is like long haul flight - arrive at the same time at the airport. But the seats are nicer and you can nap in the full flat ones.

I read business class as business class.

Like an MBA course.

But I not only agree with you, I am elated by this line of thinking (which I also arrived at independently). AI, well deployed, should remove a lot of the drudgery of modern knowledge work - TPS reports, powerpoints, progress reports and the like. Instead, you'll actually get paid to think well and deeply.

Obviously, this means 80+% of people are scared shitless because thinking is their least favorite thing to do.

Will the compliance layer not just adapt to this and expand, though? Lot of the things that AI does effectively are more structural constraints than absolute requirements.

Can you add some more here, I'm having trouble parsing your meaning.

What do you mean by "compliance layer", for instance?

I expect "compliance layer" refers to that portion of the workforce/job duties which is not devoted to doing the actual thing, but to checking records and requesting reports so that it can be shown that you are "in compliance with (Company Policy X/Regulation Y/Client Moral Standard Z/what-have-you)" as regards doing the thing.