Several years ago when working at IHA, I came across Dave Rupert's essay "Technical debt as a lack of understanding". It helped me understand at a fundamental level the problem we were facing in the organization at that time. Little would I know how even more relevant the essay would become in 2026, when technical debt is being created at lightning speed by my own use of AI tools. It's great when things are working well and it feels like magic to be able to create tools almost instantaneously. But what happens when it breaks or does something you don't expect, when someone is looking for a human being to be held accountable for such happenings? I have to stop resorting to the excuse that "oh, the AI made it but I don't know why." I need to own my creations earlier rather than later.