Stronger Models, More Bloated Code: The Structural Blind Spot of AI Code Bloat

模型越强，代码越臃肿：AI 代码膨胀的结构性盲区

An arXiv paper found that stronger AI models produce more bloated code, with a 0.94 correlation between code volume and architectural flaws. GitClear's 2026 report shows duplicate code blocks grew 81% since 2023, while refactoring dropped from 21% to under 4%. A company called Slopfix charges $10,000/week to delete AI-generated bloat—one case went from 100K to 35K lines. The post argues manual cleanup services are transitional; SaaS tools like CodeRabbit and platforms like Cursor and Microsoft Copilot are absorbing that demand.

Why it matters: Counterintuitive empirical finding backed by both an arXiv paper and GitClear report — not an opinion piece. The Slopfix case grounds the problem in real commercial demand. Deduction because the article is secondary curation rather than primary research, and some arguments rel...