How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt

Cognitive debt (the loss of shared understanding in developers' minds about how a system works) is becoming a bigger problem than technical debt (poorly written code) when using generative AI and agentic AI (AI systems that can take actions autonomously). Even if AI produces clean code, developers may lose track of why design decisions were made or how different parts connect, making it impossible to understand or modify the system confidently.