Deep Blue is a name for “that feeling of AI induced ennui where software engineers get listless because the AI can do anything”. According to 2026 in LLMs (so far), the term was coined on the Oxide and Friends podcast, in the episode where Simon Willison, Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal shared their predictions for 2026, with Willison giving full credit for it to Leventhal. It names a feeling about one’s own profession rather than a practice or a failure of the tools.
Usage
Willison describes Deep Blue as a major theme throughout 2026, touched on by several speakers at the conference where he gave the talk, and ties it to his own experience of a year in which everything in his career changed so quickly and dramatically that much of his work was coming to terms with what it meant for his profession. He returns to it several times. One is the idea of a Fable Class Model: realising that defining goals, writing unambiguous instructions and choosing the right tools still take a lot of skill — and are close to what software engineering is — helped him “a little bit” with his Deep Blue feelings. Another is game development: being able to make something that looks like a game does not make one a game developer. Closing the talk by “getting back to Deep Blue”, he describes his work as feeling harder rather than easier, because the agent handles everything easy and what is left is difficult.
Related Terms
AI Mania, Fable Class Model, Skill Atrophy, Cognitive Surrender