Oversight Does Not Mean Reading Everything Yourself
Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Stephen Toub argues that manually reviewing every line of code is not only unrealistic but less effective than relying on specialized AI agents.
“I did not read every line. That would be impossible.”
According to Stephen Toub, a software engineer and Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, reading every line of code oneself would not automatically prevent bugs. On the contrary, he considers AI agents better suited to detailed code review.
“In fact, agents reading every line is a lot more effective, not just faster, but more effective in quality than me doing so.”
This does not mean abandoning human oversight. Rather, its focus changes:
“[…] I was focusing more on big picture stuff. Is the direction of this correct? Is the architecture of this correct?”
Review increasingly takes place from a higher-level perspective:
“A lot of it is like squinting at a 30,000-foot level and looking at the two code bases. And does anything look off?”
Another indication of a post-generative present: Human oversight no longer necessarily means examining every individual result in full. Instead, it increasingly focuses on assessing architecture, direction, and the relationships within the system.
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This indication by Benedikt Brünner is licensed under
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