[globular-toast]

I think we have to be careful with such analogies. One does not have to have sweated for years with hand tools to understand what an accurate rip cut through ply looks like. On the other hand, if you just gave someone some rough cut wood and an electric sander, how would they even understand what that wood could look like having never used a good, sharp hand plane?

With AI coding we're talking about people producing abstract artifacts that most people do not understand and do not know how to test. These aren't just strips of board. They are little machines. So you shouldn't be asking whether you'd trust a table saw to cut your boards, you should be asking whether you'd trust someone who has never cut boards to build your table saw.

[ok_dad]

Everyone is talking about AI coding like only brainless idiots are using it. I’m a professional, I can judge and fix the clankers output. I don’t give a shit if some other idiot is using their tools right.

[krapp]

The vast majority of people using AI to code, even in production, are brainless idiots. Not knowing anything about the process and not needing to care is the entire draw of AI for most people regardless of the medium, and particularly for employers. Processes are moving to eliminate humans from the loop of AI production, not to require them.

People like you are an anomaly, not the norm. "I wrote an entire production quality SaaS without knowing what a function is" is the norm.

[ok_dad]

I don’t agree with the presentation, but the dead comment here has a point I agree with.

Most developers were shit before, and now they’re just faster at that shit.

AI isn’t the cause, it’s a tool being misused. Misused at a grand scale, indeed. I don’t care, that’s literally not my problem. I can’t do anything about it, so I don’t complain, I use the tool the way that helps me without producing garbage. I can only control myself and what I do with this tool, why would I get anxiety about what others are doing? Some guy is probably driving his car too fast and killing someone this instant, and vibe coding isn’t doing anything near as bad.

[globular-toast]

> Some guy is probably driving his car too fast and killing someone this instant, and vibe coding isn’t doing anything near as bad.

Yet. Cars probably didn't kill random members of the public in the first two years of existence either. Even after their obvious dangers were understood it would be decades before pollution and the effects of roads everywhere, urbanisation and sprawl would be understood. Even though the externalities are now acknowledged we still struggle to do anything about it, over a century later.

Is it too much to ask to learn from our mistakes and not let the same thing happen again and again?

[ok_dad]

What was the mistake? That cars were invented? You can’t control everything, you can’t put it back in the bottle. Do you think either of us have any control over the vibe coder type? They’re always going to be reaching for the easy button, whether that’s AI or something else.

[globular-toast]

The mistake was building our whole society around cars, letting driving become a de facto right, rather than the privilege and responsibility it should be.

What are you going to do when your government insists you use some vibe coded app to get access to healthcare? How do you feel about your family having to live in a world with vibe coded cars and drones flying around?

This is too big for us to just bury our heads in the sand. Our industry is already immature considering the impact it has on people's lives. Building regulations exist to ensure you can get a house built without it falling down. How are you going to get software built? You can't just do it all yourself.