Considered writing on AI-assisted development, the dark software factory, Claude Code, and building human. By Stephan Schmidt.
Level 6 is a self-optimizing factory that tunes its own harness. Level 7 is a factory that sources its own intent by talking to customers and reading telemetry. Each level pulls more meta-work inside the machine. Here is what each one unlocks, what it still cannot do, and where the product human goes from here.
The dark software factory is the category for fully autonomous AI software delivery: agents write, test, and ship code while humans stay on intent, policy, and outcome review. Origin, five levels, StrongDM example, critiques, and where humans belong in the stack.