[simonw]

I often think about how the modern world genuinely does run on Excel formulas, many written by amateurs, most without automated tests and with version control based on final_final_v2 suffixes.

Somehow civilization continues to function!

Makes me a bit less terrified that untested vibe coded slop will sink the economy. It's not that different from how things work already.

[guitarbill]

One counter-example is the Horizon IT scandal. Obviously, you didn't say this directly, but "only a few people died/were affected, somehow civilization continues to function" maybe isn't the best argument.

[simonw]

Sure, that scandal was horrific. I don't think the root cause was amateurs with bad spreadsheets.

It was an institutional failure, and the software involved had hundreds of millions of pounds spent on it and was built by supposed professionals.

[guitarbill]

Sure, we can ignore that specific example, and that software has an effect on the world, and that people have been trained to expect software to be deterministic and accurate.

Or if you want compare vibe coding with any technology, like electricity. Sure, that one person got electrocuted or their house burned down. But it's just so useful, and "somehow civilization continues to function". I guess they should've known better.

I'm personally not comfortable hyping up the benefits whilst ignoring the risks, especially for lay people.

[krisoft]

> we can ignore that specific example

We are not ignoring it. It is just not an example of a load bearing excel sheet.

[richm44]

Try this https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how...

[SteveNuts]

> Makes me a bit less terrified that untested vibe coded slop will sink the economy.

The difference is those spreadsheets were buried on a company internal fileshare and the blast radius would be contained to that organization.

Today vibe coders can type a prompt, click a button, and their thing is exposed directly to the internet and ready to suck up any data someone uploads.

[rsynnott]

In which spreadsheet slop arguably sinks the economy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt#Metho...

(This paper was extremely influential in pushing austerity policies of questionable efficacy during the financial crisis.)

We don't want _more_ of this.

[otabdeveloper4]

> Somehow civilization continues to function!

Citation needed, I think.