Why the New AI Quality & Efficiency Manifesto Matters for Software Development

At QECon 2023 in Beijing, the AI Quality & Efficiency Manifesto was released by a group of industry leaders to define how software development should evolve with AI. The authors argue that we are in an unprecedented era where AI, especially large models and agents, permeates every stage of development, testing, and operations, becoming a "new colleague" in daily workflows.

First principle – Collaborative symbiosis over substitution : AI is positioned as an amplifier of human intelligence, a powerful tool that must be guided by human creativity, domain knowledge, and systems thinking to design the right solutions.

Second principle – Sustainable quality over short‑term speed : The manifesto warns against treating AI merely as a "fast‑forward" button for code generation. Prioritizing lines of code without regard for readability, maintainability, or extensibility creates technical debt that outweighs any immediate efficiency gains.

Third principle – Adaptive evolution over rigid processes : Traditional, standardized processes risk becoming constraints in the fast‑moving AI era. Teams must evolve both individual skills for effective human‑AI collaboration and workflows that dynamically incorporate AI into requirements analysis, test‑case generation, and code refactoring.

Fourth principle – Value creation over technology worship : AI should be adopted to solve real problems and generate measurable business value, not to add a fashionable label to the tech stack or produce polished presentations.

Fifth principle – Data‑driven decisions over experience alone : While software engineering has relied on expert intuition, the manifesto emphasizes leveraging data—defect rates, cycle times, user feedback—to assess AI‑generated code quality and guide human‑AI collaboration, using data as an "empowerer" of intuition.

Sixth principle – Open sharing over closed silos : The authors advocate open ecosystems, sharing prompts, models, and best practices to lower entry barriers, avoid duplicated effort, and accelerate industry progress, arguing that true competitive advantage lies in an open, collaborative environment.

These six principles together form a roadmap for a future where software engineering emphasizes human value, dual drivers of value and data, and continuous, open evolution in the AI era.