The Human-in-the-Loop Seam: Where Humans Belong in a Dark Factory
Human-in-the-loop is a phrase everyone uses. Almost nobody uses it correctly. The seam is in the spec, not in the implementation.
Blog
Articles on AI, leadership, cultivation, and the human side of technology.
The Taste Problem: What Dark Factories Can't Transfer
A dark factory can transfer code. It cannot transfer the judgment that knew the code was right. That is the problem provenance was invented to solve.
Kubernetes Operator Patterns for Software Factories
An operator is a control loop with a domain in it. That is the whole definition. Here are the four operator patterns and the one anti-pattern to avoid.
Why Kubernetes for a Dark Factory
A dark factory is a control loop. Kubernetes is the most boring control loop in production. That is the reason.
Light vs Dark Factories: Why the Middle Is Harder Than Either End
A light factory has too many gates. A dark factory has too few. The middle is where the engineering happens, and the middle is the part nobody talks about.
50 First Dates with AI: Why Your AI Forgets Everything and What to Do About It
Every conversation with most AI systems is a first date. Here's the three-layer memory model that actually compounds — from Scott Scoble's scobleclaw experience.
Spec-First Development Is the Only Audit Surface for AI-Generated Code
Every software project has specifications, and every specification eventually lies. The spec-code gap is a provenance problem — and Speckl closes it by making the spec compile into code, so the gap never opens.
My Open Source Projects: Speckl, ScobleClaw, and Beyond the Prompt
A roundup of Scott Scoble's open-source projects — Speckl (spec compiler with provenance), ScobleClaw (agentic engineering framework), and Beyond the Prompt (workshop on building with AI agents).
We're Going to Formally Verify SQLite
SQLite runs on every smartphone, every browser, every embedded system. Its core state machines have never been formally verified. Following the Kafka proof, we're tackling the most deployed database in history with SpeckDL and Z3 bounded model checking.
What a Dark Factory Actually Is (and Isn't)
The phrase is everywhere. The working meaning is gone. Here is what it is, what it isn't, and the five positions on the spectrum.
Stop Strip-Mining Your Engineers: The Cultivation Alternative to Throughput Obsession
Gallup 2026: 80% of the global workforce is disengaged. The $438B cost isn't a tool problem; it's a people problem. Here's the cultivation alternative.
Soil Health for Teams: A Diagnostic Framework for What's Actually Depleted
Tall stalks, ground cover, nitrogen fixers, pollinators, deep roots. The agricultural metaphor isn't poetic; it's diagnostic. Here's how to read the soil under your team.
From QA to Principal: What 30 Years of Software Teaches You About Humans
I started writing code in 1985. I started getting paid for it in 1996. The tech stacks changed; the human patterns didn't. Here's what three decades teaches you when you pay attention to the people, not just the code.
Your AI Has Amnesia: Why Memory Architecture Is the Hardest Problem in Agentic Systems
The anterograde amnesia metaphor for AI memory architecture. Three-layer memory model for agentic systems from Scott Scoble's scobleclaw experience.
You're Already in the Agentic Wars
Meta has Hatch. Google has Remy. Everyone is building agents. Whose capability compounds?
The Token Anxiety Trap; Why AI Agents Aren't Liberating Us (Yet)
Your agent swarm runs 24/7 and you're more anxious than ever. Stanford's 2026 AI Index shows a 20% drop in junior dev employment since 2024. The agent revolution promised freedom — instead it gave us token anxiety and a new kind of burnout.
What Does AI Brain Fry Really Mean?
Gallup says 80% of the workforce is disengaged. The heaviest AI users are burning out fastest. The fix isn't training - it's structural.
The Surveillance Dividend Is a Lie
Every company running AI adoption is making an implicit bargain: data for tools. The companies extracting the most surveillance are hemorrhaging their best talent.
80% of Your Team Is Disengaged. It's Not Their Fault.
Gallup says 80% of the global workforce is disengaged. The $100B+ engagement industry has failed for 20 years. The fix isn't perks or surveys; it's structural.
The Developer Experience Shift; Why Tooling Alone Won't Save You
Companies will spend $60B+ on developer tools in 2026. But the real DevEx crisis isn't tooling — it's autonomy, mastery, and belonging. As code production becomes commoditized, the human dimensions of engineering become the only competitive advantage that matters.
Three Questions That Changed How I Mentor
The simple mentoring framework that actually gets used - three questions that unlock real growth.
Three Signs Your Team Is Being Strip-Mined
The mindset shift that separates thriving teams from burned-out ones - cultivation over extraction.
The Soil Beneath The Code
A three-layer framework for understanding what makes engineering organizations healthy - or not.