Author: Derik Hammer

Your team is shipping faster than ever. The question is whether they understand what they shipped. Comprehension debt is the growing gap between code…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 9 AI is a multiplier. The thing it multiplies is you. That framing has a sharp implication most…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 8 AI produces fluent output. That is the problem. When an AI response is well-structured, confidently phrased, and…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 7 Constraints make AI better. This is counterintuitive. Most teams assume that giving an AI system more access,…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 6 Ninety percent of engineering teams now use AI. Only 23% extract meaningful productivity gains from it. That…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 5 I asked an AI agent to build a procedurally generated terrain system for a Godot video…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 4 Amazon’s Kiro AI agent caused a 13-hour AWS outage by deleting and recreating a production environment.…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 3 AI did not make your job easier. It expanded what is possible for you to accomplish,…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 2 AI does not know what is true. It knows what is statistically probable. This distinction is…

First Principles of AI Usage — Part 1 The quality of your AI output is bounded by the quality of context you provide. Not…