Genie Lessons: Nobody Wants Agents

Kent Beck reflects on using Augment Code's Intent (a multi-agent AI coding tool) while working on an adaptive radix tree in Go. He argues that nobody actually wants agents or agent swarms — what developers want is outcome-orientation: describe a goal and get an answer on feasibility and cost. The multi-agent architecture forced him to manage coordination overhead himself, defeating the purpose. He also identifies an unsolved frontier: real-time multiplayer development where multiple humans can steer AI together, not just observe it.