Why Do You Trust Your Compiler More Than Your Coworker?

On trust chains, AI-assisted development, and the uncomfortable question of what “verified” means. Co-written with Claude Opus 4.6 When you compile a C program, you don’t read the assembly output to check that the compiler did its job. You trust the compiler. When the compiled program runs on your CPU, you don’t worry about whether the transistors are switching correctly. Even if you have an…