| I don't get this perspective. How much of the source code of the compiler you use did you read? How much of the source code of the standard library of your chosen language did you read? What about the dependencies? How much of the source code of a huge codebase does the average developer read? I don't think any human alive has read the majority of code in huge codebases like Word, Windows, Linux, etc. For almost every developer, the majority of the code you use every day, whether in software you use or actual code you're shipping, is not code you've ever read. And no one seems to have a problem with it, because we've built lots of processes around this. It's only when the code is written by an AI and not a coworker or random library author that people seem to have a problem. And I get it! AI wasn't very good at writing code two years ago. Maybe even a year ago. I think it's good now, but maybe you don't - ok, that's fine, maybe it'll only live up to your standards in a year or two or ten. But that doesn't seem to be what people are arguing, it's not "AI isn't good enough", it's "how can we possibly ship code we never read", and my point is that we've all been doing this for our entire careers. |
AI/Vibecoding breaks this social trust, hence the general aversion to using those codebases or bringing LLM code in. It's not really about the general quality of the agents. It's about the code no longer being reviewed and understood by a human. How can one place trust in that? Unit tests don't replace careful review and considerate design.