10. Understanding debt and cognitive offloading (2026-10-13)
The smoother the Loop runs, the bigger the two hidden costs. Understanding debt: the loop-generated code wasn’t typed by you line by line, and the gap between the code in the repo and the code you actually understand keeps widening — debt never disappears, it just moves: you pay it while writing the code, or you pay it when the pager goes off at 3 AM. Cognitive offloading: once the tool works, humans are quickest to stop thinking. Steering AI requires your hands on the wheel; cognitive offloading is letting go of it. Accomplishment migrating from “writing it myself” to “steering AI” (point 3) is an upgrade — but letting go of the wheel is a downgrade.