From code owners to problem definers

The way we think about ownership in development might change.

Today, when you write code, other developers review it before it gets merged. They need to understand your logic, your variable names, your approach. Because they might need to work with this code later.

But when AI generates the code, what exactly are we reviewing?

Maybe ownership becomes about tests and requirements instead of implementations.

You own the test suite that defines what the system should do. You own the performance benchmarks. You own the specification that describes the problem we’re solving.

Someone else might run the same tests and get completely different generated code. That’s fine as long as it passes the same validation.

This changes everything. Instead of “Who wrote this function?” the question becomes “Who defined these requirements?” Instead of debugging someone’s implementation, you’re questioning whether the test suite covers the right scenarios.

The skill becomes problem definition rather than problem solving through code.