If AI writes your code, why use Python?

The argument from the title: Python’s ergonomics were optimized for humans, and humans are increasingly not the proximate authors. If the model is happy writing Rust, the case for the slower-runtime, weaker-typed alternative gets thinner.

The last twenty years of language choice were shaped by a single constraint: humans write the code, and humans are slow at low-level languages. That constraint is gone. Stack Overflow’s 2025 survey had Rust as the most-admired language for the tenth consecutive year at 72%, with Gleam at 70%, Elixir at 66%, and Zig at 64%. The stated preference was always there; the tooling finally caught up to the preference.

This reads like the strongest argument until you start unpacking it. What happens when the agent halts halfway through a refactor? When your context window runs out, or the provider doubles the price? Or for those 20% of times where it just doesn’t do the job?

The model writes what I want to read, and I still want to read the simpler thing. Use what you know best, optimise when the need actually arises. I say this as a Rust programmer and advocate, not everything needs to be in Rust. Rewrite It In Rust is enough of a meme already.

Why don’t we go a step further if we’re all-in on AI? Let models and agents invent their own language and let it optimise based on our preference.