The Mythical Man-Month in the Age of AI
Summary
The essay rethinks Brooks’s Law in the age of AI, arguing that adding more AI agents to a project does not solve issues of unclear requirements or process overhead. The piece notes that tasks remain sequential (the “Baby Problem”) even when agents can operate rapidly, and emphasizes that orchestration, clear definitions of “done,” and guardrails are essential to prevent agents from rewriting each other’s work. It also proposes a modern update: adding agents to a project with unclear requirements speeds up the wrong outcomes. The author calls for disciplined governance and planning when integrating AI agents into software development.