Verification Cost Is the Real AI Coding Cost

Short summary

The real bottleneck in AI-assisted coding isn't model capability but verification cost. Route tasks to cheaper models when outputs are easy to inspect, test, or roll back—like README edits, comment improvements, or well-scoped refactoring. Reserve stronger models for high-risk work touching fallbacks, permissions, rate limits, migrations, backwards compatibility, and default values, where behavioral changes hide in subtle code paths.

• •Verification cost exceeds generation cost when selecting which AI model to use for a task
• •Route cheaper models to easy-to-verify work: visible output (READMEs, comments), testable code (with clear test boundaries), and rollbackable changes
• •Reserve stronger models for high-risk work: fallbacks, permissions, rate limits, migrations, defaults, and backwards compatibility

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.