Yeah, it seems like the article should have qualified the issue more or been more precise. Instead of "You Need AI That Reduces Maintenance Costs", something like "Your Use of AI Should Reduce Maintenance Costs".
Some of the maintenance costs you mentioned are primarily read-only, slam dunk AI use cases. Input from AI to diagnose bugs, trace data flows, and help with reasoning. Tests are something of a gray area in the sense that they are not read-only but they don't affect the logic of the app itself.
The "write" use cases (you mention refactoring and the author seems to primarily focus on writing code) is where the author's point seems to be primarily aimed at.
Definitely agree on the read-only improvements to maintenance. Those are unquestionable slam dunk, high value improvements.
Some of the maintenance costs you mentioned are primarily read-only, slam dunk AI use cases. Input from AI to diagnose bugs, trace data flows, and help with reasoning. Tests are something of a gray area in the sense that they are not read-only but they don't affect the logic of the app itself.
The "write" use cases (you mention refactoring and the author seems to primarily focus on writing code) is where the author's point seems to be primarily aimed at.
Definitely agree on the read-only improvements to maintenance. Those are unquestionable slam dunk, high value improvements.