# AI is breaking our proxies for expertise

> The signals we used to judge competence — clean code, fast output — no longer carry information.

- Type: signal
- Published: 2026-09-14
- Topics: agentic-development, solo-company, hiring, craft
- Source: Sean Goedecke — https://seangoedecke.com/ai-is-breaking-our-proxies-for-expertise/
- Canonical: https://cmlonder.com/signals/ai-breaking-proxies-for-expertise

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The signals we quietly relied on to judge competence, like clean code,
confident writing, and fast turnaround, used to be expensive enough that
they carried information; now they are cheap and they carry none. What I
keep thinking about is that we have not yet replaced them, so hiring and
review are running on instruments that stopped working.