X post by **Andrew Ng** from **August 14, 2026** (16:29 UTC), reprising the "Dear friends" letter from ***The Batch* #366** (DeepLearning.AI, same date), ~900 words. Ng presents **The AI Engineering Skills Map** and publishes **four skills** held to be the most important. **(1) Building and deploying AI applications** — the specificity is named: *« The key difference between AI and non-AI applications is that the former has unpredictable outputs »*, hence the emphasis on *evals* and error-analysis loops. **(2) Software engineering fundamentals**, because *« Understanding software fundamentals allows you to recognize what tradeoffs even exist »* — the inexperienced developer fails *« because they don't know what context to give their coding agent »*, hence the goal of *« steering coding agents using the precise language of software engineering »*. **(3) Using coding agents**, in an operational formulation: *« help the agent autonomously close loops by providing verifiers or evals »*, and *« knowing how much to intervene and how much to leave them alone »*. **(4) *Shaping the build***: *« Given a clear spec, coding agents are rapidly improving at delivering to it. Thus, our work as engineers is shifting toward deciding what should be in the spec »*, paired with *« Engineers should no longer expect to be given a pixel-perfect design and asked only to implement it. »* A **terminology note** carries most of the framing: Ng talks about **skills** in AI engineering and **not the role** "AI Engineer", with an explicit analogy — *« All developers today should know how to work with the cloud, and only a smaller number have a "Cloud engineer" title. »* The whole is backed by *« an analysis of more than 10,000 job postings, dozens of structured interviews with experts, hiring managers, and recruiters, surveys, and other online data »*, of which **no numeric results are published**: Ng describes his process as *« informally… akin to running clustering »* and announces a detailed map in future posts. He states the interest in the second-to-last sentence: *« DeepLearning.AI's principal focus is to help developers gain these AI engineering skills. »*
#AI Engineering Skills Map#skills map#Andrew Ng
**Andrew Ng** — fondateur de **DeepLearning.AI** · general partner d'**AI Fund** · cofondateur de **Coursera** et de **Google Brain** · ancien chief scientist de Baidu. Texte signé · à la première personne · écrit *« with my team »* sans qu'aucun collaborateur soit nommé. Publié le **14 août 2026** sur X et dans ***The Batch* n°366** — même texte aux deux endroits ; préférer *The Batch* pour toute citation durable. Quatrième fiche Ng du corpus · après les lettres n°350 (24 avril) · n°352 (8 mai) et n°359 (26 juin).
Netflix — Q2 FY2026 shareholder letter: GenAI scales up in production (≈300 titles in 2026), LLMs for discovery and natural-language search, AI tools across the entire advertising cycle (Netflix)
SFEIR analysis note that reexamines the software architect profession in the age of generative AI through the framework of **Gregor Hohpe** (*The Software Architect Elevator*). Central thesis: the « **Oracle** » architect — the holder of supreme knowledge dictating rules from an ivory tower — is obsolete, since AI generates code and proposals on demand; the modern architect becomes an **intelligence amplifier (IQ Amplifier)** who provides teams with mental models, business context, and decision tools to leverage AI while ensuring system coherence. The document breaks down the impact **floor by floor of the "Architect Elevator"** (Enterprise / Solution / Platform / Software architect) and argues for **Domain-Driven Design (DDD)** as an essential safeguard: the **ubiquitous language** serves as the basis for *system prompts* (a domain dictionary injected via `.clinerules`/templates, reducing hallucinations and business misinterpretations) and **bounded contexts** restrict the scope entrusted to AI to maximize generation reliability. Conclusion: AI is not a threat but a catalyst that relieves the architect of technical grunt work to emphasize synthesis, strategic vision, modeling, and the human link between tech and business. Domain: software architecture, the architect's role, DDD, structured prompting, enterprise AI governance.
#Software architect#architect's role#generative AI
Message from **Linus Torvalds** on the **linux-media** mailing list (thread "Linking Patchwork with Sashiko?", about an LLM tool for maintainer assistance), in which the creator and **top-level maintainer** of the Linux kernel **officially settles the project's position on AI**. Responding to Roman Gushchin, who pointed out that an adverse message expressed "a very anti-LLM in general" stance, Torvalds agrees ("Yes") and then **flatly denies that this is the kernel's position** ("And no, that's not the position of the Linux kernel"). He **puts his foot down** as the supreme maintainer: **"Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects"**; those who take issue with that can **"do the open source thing: fork it"** — "or just walk away". **Central thesis**: **"AI is a tool, like the other tools we use, and clearly a useful tool"**; that may not have been "so 'clearly' true a year ago, but it's not in question today". He distinguishes questions **still open** ("what the AI economy will actually look like in the end") from the question that is **settled** ("is it useful?") — "anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually tried it". He **concedes** that the tool can be **"painful"** — maintainer burden, and the fact that it "keeps finding embarrassing bugs" — but refuses the ostrich posture ("put your head in the sand going 'La La La, I can't hear you'"). **The right response**: make sure **LLM tools _help_ maintainers** rather than causing them pain. **Non-coercion, deliberately**: "nobody is forced to use it, but **I will very loudly ignore those who try to prevent others from using it**". On imperfection: "AI isn't perfect, but hell, anybody who points at its problems had better also point at the mirror" — "**natural intelligence isn't always all that great either**". **Governance framework**: the kernel project "has always been and will remain about **technology**"; the social angle of open source is a "side benefit, not the _point_"; **"this is *NOT* some kind of 'social warrior' project, never has been, never will be"**; "we do open source because it results in **better technology**, not for religious reasons". Program-conclusion: **"we decide based on technical merit first. Not on fear of new tools."** To be read as a **doctrinal position statement** from one of the most influential figures in software — echoing ESR's pro-LLM counter-testimony (another pillar of open source, [[raymond-llm-coding-empowering-2026-07-08]]).
#Linus Torvalds#Linux#Linux kernel
Linus Torvalds ([email protected]) — ingénieur logiciel finlando-américain · **créateur et mainteneur suprême du noyau Linux** (depuis 1991) et de **Git** (2005). Employé de la **Linux Foundation**. Figure centrale et notoirement franche de l'open source · dont la parole sur les mailing lists du kernel fait autorité et jurisprudence dans la communauté. S'exprime ici en sa qualité de **top-level maintainer** pour fixer la position officielle du projet vis-à-vis des outils d'IA. Autres participants au thread cités : Roman Gushchin (linux.dev) · Laurent Pinchart · Mauro Carvalho Chehab · Konstantin Ryabitsev (Linux Foundation) · Steven Rostedt · Stephen Finucane · Jason Gunthorpe · entre autres. (Message de mailing list linux-media ; date : 2026-07-14 ; date d'ajout à la veille : 2026-07-17.)
X post by **Eric S. Raymond** (ESR, author of *The Cathedral and the Bazaar*, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, ~50 years of coding) — **a frontal counter-testimony to the narrative that "LLMs produce crap code and hallucinate, useless for programming."** His thesis: this **almost never happens to him**, and **not at all anymore over the last two generations** of models he uses ("chat GPT 5.4 and 5.5" under **codex**). The former symptom — a model "going off the rails" as it approaches its context limit — has disappeared: codex now displays a **red warning** prompting the user to **clear the session** instead of spiraling. **Scope of use**: AI applied to **feature changes, refactoring and debugging across 63 projects** in **C, Go, Rust, Python and shell**; documentation writing; **decompiling a DOS binary into readable source**. An established **work routine**: when reopening a project, he first runs the **regression tests**, then starts codex and asks it to **audit the code** (bugs + improvement suggestions). Verdict: LLMs are **"excellent and tremendously empowering"**; their **worst limitation** is **"architectural tunnel vision"** — excellent at generating code to specification, but sometimes **blind to higher-level patterns** — which he takes to be the **job of his "meatbrain."** The strongest, counter-intuitive point: LLMs **do NOT get details and edge cases wrong**; he says he is **worse than them** on this front (despite 50 years of experience), because if a change must **touch five places**, the model **reliably finds all five**, whereas the human fixes four and **spends hours debugging** before finding the forgotten fifth. He then questions the **"downshouters"**: do they live in a **different universe**? Are they using **old, weak models**? Is there a **skill issue** he doesn't see because his **mental habits and communication** fit well with these tools' "handles"? An issue he considers important to settle, since "**billions of dollars would be wasted on misdirected token spend**." His recipe, "very simple": **"Be clear in your thinking, tell the model what you want with precision, and good things happen"** — closing with: "what am I missing here?" To be read as a **pro-LLM counterpoint from a historic figure of open source** to the recurring debate on the (de)valuation of coding agents — echoing the "skill issue" and specification discipline (cf. [[martignole-token-manifesto-2026-07-17]]), and forming a diptych with **Linus Torvalds'** doctrinal pro-AI-tool stance on behalf of the Linux kernel ([[torvalds-llm-outil-kernel-2026-07-14]]).
#Eric S. Raymond#ESR#esrtweet
Eric S. Raymond (ESR, @esrtweet sur X) — développeur · hacker et essayiste américain · **figure historique du mouvement open source**. Né le 4 décembre 1957 à Boston (Massachusetts) ; paralysie cérébrale de naissance · enfance en partie au Venezuela puis en Pennsylvanie. Auteur de l'essai très influent **« The Cathedral and the Bazaar »** (1997, livre 1999) · qui oppose le modèle « cathédrale » (développement centralisé et fermé) au modèle « bazar » (décentralisé et ouvert, à la Linux) ; il a **popularisé le terme « open source »** (contre « free software ») et contribué à convaincre **Netscape** d'ouvrir son code (naissance de Mozilla). **Co-fondateur de l'Open Source Initiative (OSI)** en 1998 · président jusqu'en 2005. A édité le **Jargon File** (*The New Hacker's Dictionary*) · maintenu des projets comme **Fetchmail** · écrit **« The Art of Unix Programming »** (2003). Se revendique **libertarien** · défenseur du port d'armes · ceinture noire de taekwondo ; commente régulièrement tech · politique et open source sur X. Se présente ici comme codeur « très · très bon » avec **~50 ans d'expérience**. (Post X personnel ; date de publication : 2026-07-08 ; date d'ajout à la veille : 2026-07-17.)
Analysis note **Trésor-Éco n° 391** (June 2026) from the **Direction générale du Trésor** (Ministry of the Economy), authored by **Martin Chopard, Elisa Cotet, Tristan Gantois and Eloïse Villani**. Institutional economic literature review on **the effect of AI (mainly generative) on employment**. **Three-part thesis**: (1) AI affects employment volume via **two opposing channels** — the **displacement** effect (substitution of automatable tasks) vs. the **productivity** effect (complementarity, lower costs, increased demand) — but the **aggregate effect remains, for now, weak/unmeasurable**, for lack of hindsight and adoption (≈20% of EU firms in 2025); (2) **heterogeneous effects** appear depending on **occupations** (exposure ≠ effect: everything depends on the degree of substitutability/complementarity and the **price elasticity** of demand), **workers** (biased technical progress, concerns for **young people**) and **sectors** (finance, IT, business services the most exposed); (3) in the **long term, the net effect remains uncertain** — between massive substitution (if agentic/physical AI becomes widespread) and **creative destruction** (lesson from past revolutions: innovations created more jobs than they destroyed). **Public policy** conclusion: support the transition (training, mobility — the "Osez l'IA" plan, France 2030) and **invest in AI to avoid falling behind** in international competition. Extensively sourced corpus (43 footnotes, estimate panels in Tables 1-3).
#AI and employment#generative artificial intelligence#displacement effect
**Martin Chopard · Elisa Cotet · Tristan Gantois · Eloïse Villani** — économistes de la **Direction générale du Trésor** (DG Trésor) · Ministère de l'Économie · des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle · énergétique et numérique. Directrice de la publication : Dorothée Rouzet. Le document engage la DG Trésor mais « ne reflète pas nécessairement la position du ministère ».
Video interview recorded at **VivaTech** (**Scaleway** booth), broadcast by the media outlet **République**, bringing together **Damien Lucas** (CEO of Scaleway) and **Franck Le Moal** (Global Technical Officer of the **LVMH** group). **Central thesis**: the emergence of a **"tech geopolitics"** is forcing multinationals to abandon the single global solution in favor of an **information system regionalized into three blocs** (United States, Europe, China). LVMH (€80bn in revenue, 75 maisons, 100+ countries) formalizes a **cloud partnership with Scaleway** to build an **autonomous European building block**, alongside Google Cloud (data, since 2021), SAP, Salesforce on the Western side and Alibaba Cloud / Huawei / Tencent on the Chinese side. The group describes itself as **"hybrid"** and **autonomous** rather than **"sovereign"** (a word it rejects, deemed ambiguous). Scaleway positions itself as a **European cloud provider** immune to extraterritorial laws and protected against a **kill switch** ("not science fiction," given the weekend's news). Damien Lucas's economic argument: **€1 spent with Scaleway = 68 cents that stay in the European economy** (vs < 20 cents with a US hyperscaler, even when hosted in France). Timeline: PoCs completed, rollout starting at **Sephora and Louis Vuitton**, significant footprint targeted within **12-18 months**. Scaleway's stated mission: focus on **IaaS/PaaS** (no verticalization such as office productivity software), relying on a partner ecosystem (sovereign applications, European chipsets and servers). Scaleway's **Nvidia GPU / AI** offering is **not planned in the short term** but remains open (open source models for autonomy + economic performance).
**Bertrand** — journaliste / présentateur du média **République** (partenaire de VivaTech) · conduit l'entretien. **Damien Lucas** — CEO de **Scaleway**. **Franck Le Moal** — Global Technical Officer du groupe **LVMH**.
Thoughtworks retreat on the future of software development with LLMs — reflections on organizational impact, cognitive debt, and supervised programming