A Human in Control
A summary of Daniel Stenberg’s blog post A human in control (2026), describing how the curl project positions itself between uncritical AI adoption and blanket AI rejection: AI is treated as a tool, while humans retain authority over every decision that ends up in the codebase.
Core principle
Section titled “Core principle”curl is developed and driven by humans, assisted by tools. The project does not hand responsibility to machines — every merged line is determined fit by a human, and the maintainers stand behind it as humans. No AI agent merges code on its own.
What curl allows
Section titled “What curl allows”- AI-based diagnostic and static-analysis tools — among the best tools for detecting coding mistakes early, used to surface potential issues
- AI review bots as a supplementary check — they can flag issues in pull requests, but human review stays primary
- AI assistance for initial drafting — getting the first code written is not the hard part
What curl disallows
Section titled “What curl disallows”- Unreviewed AI-generated merges — responsibility is never handed to a machine
- AI-only decision making — humans decide what is fitting and correct
- AI-generated walls of text in collaboration — tone-deaf bulk AI text “introduces sand in the machine” and harms human-to-human community work
Why it matters
Section titled “Why it matters”The hard part of software is not writing the initial code — it is the long-term maintenance and iteration over decades, which demands deep project knowledge that humans must hold. Human code review and accountability remain non-negotiable regardless of where a contribution originated.