When the Coders Don’t Code: What Happens When AI Coding Tools Go Dark? | A Musing On the Future of Cybersecurity with Sean Martin and TAPE9 | Read by TAPE9

In this issue of the Future of Cyber newsletter, Sean Martin digs into a topic that’s quietly reshaping how software gets built—and how it breaks: the rise of AI-powered coding tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and GitHub Copilot.

These tools promise speed, efficiency, and reduced boilerplate—but what are the hidden trade-offs? What happens when the tools go offline, or when the systems built through them are so abstracted that even the engineers maintaining them don’t fully understand what they’re working with?

Drawing from conversations across the cybersecurity, legal, and developer communities—including a recent legal tech conference where law firms are empowering attorneys to “vibe code” internal tools—this article doesn’t take a hard stance. Instead, it raises urgent questions:

• Are we creating shadow logic no one can trace?
• Do developers still understand the systems they’re shipping?
• What happens when incident response teams face AI-generated code with no documentation?
• Are AI-generated systems introducing silent fragility into critical infrastructure?

The piece also highlights insights from a recent podcast conversation with security architect Izar Tarandach, who compares AI coding to junior development: fast and functional, but in need of serious oversight. He warns that organizations rushing to automate development may be building brittle systems on shaky foundations, especially when security practices are assumed rather than applied.

This is not a fear-driven screed or a rejection of AI. Rather, it’s a call to assess new dependencies, rethink development accountability, and start building contingency plans before outages, hallucinations, or misconfigurations force the issue.

If you’re a CISO, developer, architect, risk manager—or anyone involved in software delivery or security—this article is designed to make you pause, think, and ideally, respond.

🔍 What’s your take? Is your team building with AI? Are you tracking how it’s being used—and what might happen when it’s not available?

📖 Read the full companion article in the Future of Cybersecurity newsletter for deeper insights: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-coders-dont-code-what-happens-ai-coding-tools-go-martin-cissp-ychqe

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This story represents the results of an interactive collaboration between Human Cognition and Artificial Intelligence.

Enjoy, think, share with others, and subscribe to "The Future of Cybersecurity" newsletter on LinkedIn: https://itspm.ag/future-of-cybersecurity

Sincerely, Sean Martin and TAPE9

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Sean Martin is a life-long musician and the host of the Music Evolves Podcast; a career technologist, cybersecurity professional, and host of the Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast; and is also the co-host of both the Random and Unscripted Podcast and On Location Event Coverage Podcast. These shows are all part of ITSPmagazine—which he co-founded with his good friend Marco Ciappelli, to explore and discuss topics at The Intersection of Technology, Cybersecurity, and Society.™️

Want to connect with Sean and Marco On Location at an event or conference near you? See where they will be next: https://www.itspmagazine.com/on-location

To learn more about Sean, visit his personal website.

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