Anecdote◆Article
People are using coding agents to reverse-engineer and automate home devices, and this trend illustrates the broader impact of the falling cost of writing code.
The author notes a recurring pattern of people using coding agents to reverse-engineer and automate home devices, framing it as a window into how cheap writing code has become. ✦ AI generated
Simon Willison · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-20 · original ↗
I keep hearing anecdotes from people who used coding agents to reverse-engineer and automate devices in their homes. I think this is an interesting illustration of the impact of the reduced cost of writing code.
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- ·Simon Willison hears recurring anecdotes of this pattern
- ·People use coding agents to reverse-engineer home devices
- ·They then automate those devices with the same agents
- ·No specific devices or numbers are cited in the source
- ·Willison frames this as an illustration of cheap code
- ·The reduced cost of writing code enables this behavior
- ·Reverse-engineering was previously too expensive to attempt
- ·The trend is a window into a broader economic shift
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