For decades, the to-do list has been a catalog of debt, a deceptively thin list of items to do, with icebergs of work hidden beneath the surface.
AI transforms tasks to work that has already been done.
Vibe Kanban, Gastown, & Conductor are the first instantiations of this for software developers. They have jargon-laden descriptions like “multi-agent orchestrator” or “visualizer,” but they are, at heart, simple & beautiful Kanban boards of done & dusted work.
Karri Saarinen of Linear describes this shift as the disappearing middle :
When the middle disappears or blends in, what becomes more in focus is the work of forming the right intent & making sure the outcome actually meets it.
As long as I’ve worked with computers, the middle of computer work has been the most important & time-consuming part.
An idea came quickly. The finished product - code, presentation, email, or spreadsheet - shipped in moments. Most of the effort was pushing pixels, writing code, or massaging formulas.
As AI improves, & it has very meaningfully in the last few months, AI completes more of the middle. In fact, planning & evaluation become the two most important parts of MacBook manipulation.
Gergely Orosz captures this perfectly :
When I just started out developing I remember being so so so full of ideas that I was coding in my head and wished I could have done programming while commuting / on the bus. With eg a phone. But it was impossible, ofc. Now it’s possible!!
Sometimes I lie awake wondering how to capture more of my thoughts for AI to work on while I sleep.
How do I describe the piece of software I want written, or the design of a particular image? How do I specify the layout & structure of a PowerPoint presentation or a blog post?
Design becomes more essential ; the clarity of intent becomes the limiting factor for our productivity.
The to-do list has become the done list, & it is waiting, patiently, for your approval.