Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#1

Post by sudo_bang_bang » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 1:56 AM UTC

I’ve been spending the day playing with Claude 3.7 trying the vibe coding approach and I’ve been able to build some complex audio synthesis one off applications.

I have no understanding how any of it works. That sparked a lot of fear in me, not so much of job loss but knowledge loss.

As these models improve I’m worried we are going to build larger systems we do not understand. It’s hard enough as it is to read code written by humans, but I worry this will be exacerbated by these ever improving models.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#2

Post by gregjor » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

If you didn’t understand how the code works to begin with, what knowledge did you lose?

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#3

Post by desdenova » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:15 AM UTC

So... try understanding the code? It's still just code, and if you don't understand it, you might learn something.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#4

Post by falcor84 » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:29 AM UTC

I don't see an inherent difference between this and what you do as a product manager, when you assign a developer to implement something for you. And then you only need to really understand the tech when there's a constraint in moving forward quickly.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#5

Post by MattGaiser » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:45 AM UTC

As a general rule, this already seems to be the case.

I generally have no understanding of how the libraries I am using work. Many companies out there have software running that nobody at the company can define specific behaviour for. I worked for a company that had on premise servers, and for one product wasn’t sure where the physical server for that product was.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#6

Post by TheMongoose » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

Not at all. I don't use AI for anything, so when everyone has become so dependent on the magic chat box to do everything for them and it falls short I'll have lots of work to do fixing it all.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#7

Post by hypothesis » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #5

As a general rule, this already seems to be the case. I generally have no understanding of how the libraries I am using work. Many companies out there have software running that nobody at the company can define specific behaviour for. I worked for a company that had on premise servers, and for one product wasn’t sure where the physical server for that product was.

Heck, you can even document deployment procedures and still lose them due to some wiki migration mishap or something like that, without anyone noticing. At least someone might notice that server is gone, less so with sparingly used documentation.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#8

Post by handfuloflight » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 3:33 AM UTC

desdenova wrote: post #3

So... try understanding the code? It's still just code, and if you don't understand it, you might learn something.

Right, it's right there for you to ask the same AI to explain you, that is, if you can't read syntax.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#9

Post by ilaksh » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 4:27 AM UTC

I dislike the name "vibe coding". I would call it "AI programming" or "programming with natural language and an AI agent" or anything other than "vibe" anything.

I'm not giving it vibes, I'm giving it specifications.

So much of our culture and society seems to be aimed at appealing to 12 year olds.

Re: Ask HN: Concerns around knowledge loss from vibe coding?

#10

Post by readyplayernull » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 4:36 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #9

I dislike the name "vibe coding". I would call it "AI programming" or "programming with natural language and an AI agent" or anything other than "vibe" anything. I'm not giving it vibes, I'm giving it specifications. So much of our culture and society seems to be aimed at appealing to 12 year olds.

LLM Assisted Programming, LAP. But I'd rather call it leap coding, because that's how it feels, like a quantum leap.