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# The Great Agent Debate ​

Two opposing views from credible engineers. Both are essential context.

## Armin Ronacher — "Building Pi With Pi" ​

Who: Creator of Flask, Sentry co-founder, Pi maintainer.
Post: lucumr.pocoo.org (May 24, 2026)

Key arguments:

- Pi is built with Pi (agents building agent tools)
- The harness matters most
- We're not at full autonomy yet
- AI-generated PRs create new OSS maintenance burdens

## George Hotz — "The Eternal Sloptember" ​

Who: Founder of comma.ai, first iPhone jailbreaker.
Post: geohot.github.io (May 24, 2026)

Key arguments:

- "Agents cannot program" — output is broken in increasingly hard-to-detect ways
- It's not "you're using it wrong" — he tried all models, harnesses, prompts
- Agents hurt large organizations more (slow feedback loops)
- "Golden era for slop, dark age for quality"

## The Synthesized View ​

Armin Says | George Says | We Teach
--- | --- | ---
Harness is the product | Output is slop | The harness catches slop (M3)
Not at dark factory yet | Agents can't program | Use agents for what they're good at (M1)
Built with Pi is real | Slot machine polish problem | Verifier finishes the polish (M3)
OSS maintenance is hard | Large orgs will suffer | Production patterns prevent this (M5)

Both are right. Agents produce slop. The harness, verification, and production patterns turn slop into shipped quality. Without the harness, Hotz wins.