A few weeks ago I wrote about cognitive debt: the slow loss of judgement that comes from letting a model think in your place. The natural question that follows: how do you use these tools seriously, at full speed, without paying that price?
Here is my answer, after a year of building a production fintech this way. It isn't using the tools less. It isn't trying harder to stay alert, because attention fades and deadlines win. It's structure: a delivery pipeline where human judgement goes to the few decisions that deserve it, and everything else is enforced by gates that don't rely on anyone remembering to care.
We are trading productivity for cognitive debt, and most of us have not noticed the bill.