In the heyday of science fiction, there was an oft-used image for how we would evolve in the future: a human with an enormous head, which, we were given to understand, was all brain.

Well, we now have one. A huge brain, that is.

First the internet, our normal-sized head surrounded by billions of websites, accessible, but barely, through the puny search engine.

And now our neocortex is encased in our artificial neocortex.

Our AI-powered brain can do incredible things. Ten times faster.

Turns out though, the rest of our body is slowing us down.

————————

You built this thing ten times faster? If it doesn’t feel right, we won’t care.

————————

As we know, as those in the profession of psychology most certainly know, what we care for, and care with, is our animal parts.

We’re all feelings, from the tip of our toes till the top of our head.

The bit that does the cerebral work makes up but a fraction of our body.

Your product might be logically sound, but if it looks like it was just pulled out of the bottom of your laundry bin, people won’t want to use it.

————————

With AI so fast, product managers feel we’re driving blind.

————————

We’re in a double bind.

It used to be that a developer worked their way through a task, building a picture as they went.

That’s gone. Developers now work module level. The particularities are left to the coding agent.

It’s the difference between flying and taking your car. Flying is leaving and arriving. Driving is traversing the terrain.

And on the other hand we have the human product manager who is desperately trying to catch up with the enormous amount of tickets now being offered for review.

Now nobody knows what’s going on. Least of all the AI. Has the memory span of a housefly.

————————

If we’re to make use of the velocity upgrade coding agents offer, we’re going to have to upgrade the velocity of assessments and approvals.

————————

Don’t get me wrong. This is not about testing. Not about unit tests, integrity testing.

It’s assumed that the code works, is efficient and optimised.

Apple’s new design paradigm is all about feelings. Called “Liquid Glass” because of course “Aqua” was already taken.

Liquid Glass is touted as “tactile”.

Feels.

Apple’s testers have a relatively easy job of it though. Icons, folders. Cards. That’s about it.

Our product manager takes care of many projects, each might consist of many generations of interface. That is to say, we don’t have the luxury of homogenising our interface elements across projects.

With coding now ten times faster, do we need ten product managers? Kinda defeats the purpose, right?

————————

While we’re still trying to figure out how to reconcile our natural neocortex, we now also need to reconcile our artificial neocortex.

————————

How can we help the product person speed up the process?

You say, install a QA skill. Done that. Makes cool reports.

You say, use Selenium. Or Playwright.

But our product manager needs to look. To click. To swipe. To soak in the product’s feel.

Needs to immerse themselves into the product’s goals, its philosophy. Is that animation fit for purpose? So we need to move that element three pixels to the right?

The human is so slow and the AI is so fast. Who’s going to win?