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      "title": "Prompts Don't Govern Agents. Reputation Does.",
      "datePublished": "2026-09-12",
      "abstract": "AI agents now generate their own decision logic while they work. Zhenfeng Cao argues that this turns the human into an \"intent architect\" who states goals, lets agents execute, and audits the results. At the scale agents are heading, no human can audit every result. This response proposes a different division of labor. The system judges agent performance around the clock. Assuming reputation for agents is properly calibrated, every agent run leaves a tamper-evident record of what the agent actually did, and agents are graded on held-out work against a standard fixed in advance. An agent turns red only when the evidence shows real underperformance. Red cases go to review, mostly by other agents with their own reputation at stake. Verdicts move standing, standing steers where work goes, and authority tied to tasks expires when the work stops, so the system cleans itself. Reputation never grants permission. The human holds authority, reviews the rare escalated red case, and answers for the outcome.",
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        "name": "Zhenfeng Cao, Agentic Software: How AI Agents Are Restructuring the Software Paradigm (arXiv:2606.05608v2, 2026)",
        "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.05608",
        "first_version_title": "The End of Software Engineering: How AI Agents Are Fundamentally Restructuring the Software Paradigm"
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