Devaluing Vision

The product-development visionaries.

We celebrate them. We write books about them. We (sometimes) wish we were them.

All product development requires trade-offs, decisions, and up-front thinking due to the costs associated with various tasks. You can’t try everything. You can’t do everything. Therefore, you make choices.

You could call it vision.

Software development was no different. However, we’re at a crossroads with AI.

Here’s what AI makes almost free — token count notwithstanding:

• What-if analysis
• Prototyping many ideas
• Refactoring and restructuring
• Unit testing
• Changing variable and function names
• Analysis of what’s already there
• Documentation
• Handing off code from one developer to another
• Retargeting new or different services

That’s a lot of what goes into vision.

AI makes vision cheaper.