Francis Fukuyama: “I think that we may be fated to be in this kind of now cyclical system where we go through a period of peace and prosperity brought on by successful liberal democracy. We get bored with it and then we try to destroy it. And we launch ourselves back into authoritarianism, conflict, war. And then we get tired of that, and we say, ‘Oh, maybe we should go back to liberal democracy again.”
: “For over half a century, software engineering has operated on a foundational premise: human engineers decompose problems, encode decision logic into static code, and manually adapt that code as requirements evolve. This paper argues that the emergence of AI agents – systems where large language models serve as the primary reasoning engine, dynamically generating and discarding code as an instrumental resource – constitutes not an incremental improvement but a fundamental restructuring of the software paradigm. Drawing on first-principles analysis of complexity scaling, we formalize the distinction between traditional software (where code is the carrier of decision logic) and agentic systems (where code is ephemeral tooling for an LLM-driven reasoning loop). We trace the historical arc from licensed software to SaaS to what we term Agent-as-a-Service (AaaS), showing that each shift transferred additional complexity away from end-users. We introduce the concept of Agentic Engineering as an emergent discipline – distinct from software engineering in its core object of study, control model, and human role. Through analysis of recent benchmark evidence including SWE-bench Verified, EvoClaw, and LangChain’s multi-agent coordination studies, we demonstrate both the transformative potential of the agentic paradigm and its current limitations. We conclude with a four-stage roadmap toward self-evolving agent ecosystems and concrete recommendations for practitioners navigating this transition.”
FT: “Consultants are on a collision course with their clients over the cost of giant IT projects, as companies look to AI to cut spending on external advisers. In FT interviews, large and small businesses around the world said they are demanding reduced fees or moving work in-house, aided by new AI tools and software that requires less integration. Consulting firms including the Big Four and Accenture that have historically deployed armies of staff to help clients integrate new IT platforms with older systems are under pressure. “Consulting resources will be needed in very different numbers and also with different skills,” said Jochen Kamp, who is leading an IT overhaul at German drugmaker Bayer. “The traditional consultant as we know them today will certainly have to change. Fewer and fewer of them will be needed.”
Business Standard: “In the 1980s, Bombay’s skyline and economy were dominated by textile mills. Even as it began shedding its identity as a textile hub, its transition to a services-led economy — driven by banking and financial services, media and professional services — took time. As the economy changed, so did Mumbai’s social fabric. Over the years, the famous Bombay Development Department chawls (or tenements that housed its culturally and regionally diverse industrial workforce), and the chawl system more broadly, began making way for multi-storeyed apartments. Dabbawalas, who carried meals for workers and were once an integral part of the landscape, dwindled in numbers as food-delivery platforms emerged. The ubiquitous kaali-peeli taxis began sharing the roads with Uber, Ola and Rapido. A city that once woke up to the sirens of textile mills gradually acquired another identity — the ‘city that never sleeps’ and the financial centre of the country.”
