About
Who's writing
I'm Andy Swanson, a software engineer with 25+ years of experience across TypeScript, Java, Python, and PHP. Most of the last few years has been spent shipping products on top of large language models, designing and operating agentic systems, and writing the internal frameworks that hold those systems together once the pilot is over. Arctovec is my independent venture. I run it, write it, and edit it.
What this site is
The premise is simple: the gap between vendor narrative and engineering reality in AI is wide enough to keep a writer busy, and most of the trade press isn't closing it. The articles here are the ones I'd want to read — cited, specific, willing to disagree with the consensus when the consensus is wrong.
Recurring beats: where agents fail under production load that pilots never see, what shadow AI actually looks like inside enterprises, the security model that autonomous systems are quietly breaking, and the engineering decisions that survive contact with the long tail.
The aim isn't a hot take. It's writing that holds up six months after it ships.
Editorial standards
- Every non-trivial claim is cited. If a number, date, or quote can't be confirmed against a primary source, it gets cut or hedged explicitly.
- No undisclosed sponsorships. Affiliate links and sponsored content, if and when they appear, are labeled.
- Articles get updated when the underlying facts change. The
Updatedline on each piece is real.