We got faster, but what we got faster at doing was creating busy work for each other. So the volume of work is higher but the signal to noise ratio is lower.

Excellent analysis.

Nights of winter turn me cold
Fears of dying, getting old
We ran the race, the race was won
By running slowly

I disagree with the premise. Never blindly trust a piece of code, document or statement written by a human or AI.

You weren’t reviewing properly before. You were slack. You let problems through. Now you have to review properly and oh no it’s slower than just clicking approve

Inevitable conclusion: “Ah, reading the code is expensive. It’s probably fine to trust it, right???”