Writing software is our generations blacksmithing
Will people value handmade code the way we do handmade knives?
October 05, 2026
Frontier AI is better at writing code than people and its already getting better. You can argue that (the best) humans are still better at software architecture, but even that I think will become solved sooner than people realize. Instead humans take a role providing business context and strategic direction to AI agents that build products to meet those goals. (And how much longer will we truly need humans for even that?)
This transition is obviously jarring to a workforce who has been told to "learn to code" for 30 years and are now being replaced. Teams getting smaller, leaner, and faster. The industry and society aren't ready. But we have seen this before, people who made metal tools like knives went through this during the industrial revolution. We went from people doing dangerous and difficult work over a fire to ever improving machines in factories pumping them out.
Today you can buy a high end knife made entirely by automation that will outperform anything handmade, and often be easier to maintain due to the ability to use different materials. And yet people like me prefer handmade, often made by a single blacksmith, knives. There is something about the artistry, knowing that someone put human effort into making this item, knowing that I will put human effort into maintaining the knife for decades to come. It has value and I will pay a premium for it.
Will we have the same feelings about software? Certainly in games, art, story, and music show the craft of human endeavor, and personally I am much less of a fan of AI use here. A game with fully AI written code but human made story, art and music might be more akin to a knife made by a machine and then hand finished by a human. The latter is kind of unappealing to me - it feels fake - an imitation of a handmade knife. And yet I personally would have no issue with a game where the art, story, and music were human crafted but the software under the hood being entirely agenticly developed.
Is it because blacksmithing requires physical labor in a way writing software doesn't? Well, a knife is a physical item that you hold in your hands, while the "code" of the software you run is very far removed from its actual usage. Most people don't even think about it nowadays, it "just works". That is probably part of it. Is it because I personally have written software and have my own preference for the final impact over the "craft"? I hand write this blog and always will, I enjoy the "craft".
I am certain at one point we'll see things come full circle and artisan "handmade" software will become desirable to some consumers once agentic development has really taken over. Will people pay a premium for "hand written code" in a way we do for a handmade knife? I have trouble seeing that.
We are definitely living through an interesting period in history: our century's industrial revolution.