This article ignores the enormous demand of AI coding paired with competition between providers. Reducing the price of tokens means that people can afford to generate more tokens. A code provider being cheaper on average to operate than another is a competitive advantage.
Perverse incentives of vibe coding
21–30 of 239 posts
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#22Can we please stop using 'vibe coding' to mean 'ai assisted coding'?? (best breakdown, imo: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/19/vibe-coding/ ) Is it really vibe coding if you are building a detailed coding plan, conducting "git-based experimentation with ruthless pruning", and essentially reviewing the code incrementally for correctness and conciseness? Sure, it's a process dependent on AI, but it's very far from n…
"Vibe coding" is a trend.[1]
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22vibe%20...
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not like gambling, it is gambling. you exchange dollars for chips (tokens -- some casinos even call the chips tokens) and insert it into the machine in exchange for the chance of a prize. if it doesn't work the first time you pull the lever, it might the second time, and it might not. Either way, the house wins. It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. There's no metaphor, the only difference from a sl…
> It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. That's wild. Anything with non-deterministic output will have this.
> "Anything with non-deterministic output will have this.
Anything with non-deterministic output that charges money ...
Edit Added words to clarify what I meant.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#24Are using the APIs worth the extra cost vs using the web tools? I haven't used any API tools, I am not a programmer, but I have generated many millions of tokens in the web canvas, something that would cost way more than the $20 I spend for them.
If you're using Claude code or cursor, for example, they can read files automatically instead of needing the user to copy paste back and forth.
Both can generate code though, I've generated code using the web interface and it works, it's just a bit tedious to copy back and forth.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#251. Yes. I've spent several late nights nudging Cline and Claude (and other systems) to the right answers. And being able to use AWS Bedrock to do this has been great (note: I work at Amazon).
2. I've had good fortunes keeping the agents to constrained areas, working on functions, or objects, with clearly defined (by me) boundaries. If the measure of a junior engineer is that you correct them once a day, an engineer once a week, a senior once a month, a principal once a quarter... Treat these agents like hyper-energetic interns. Nudge frequently.
3. Standard org management coding practices apply. Force the agents to show work, plan, unit test, investigate.
And, basically, I've described that we're becoming Software Development Managers with teams of on-demand low-quality interns. That's an incredibly powerful tool, but don't expect hyper-elegant and compact code from them. Keep that for the senior engineering staff (humans) for now.
(Note: The AlphaEvolve announcement makes me wonder if I'm going to have hyper-energetic applied science interns next...)
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#26Amusingly, about 90% of my rat's-nest problems with Sonnet 3.7 are solved by simply appending a few words to the end of the prompt:
"write minimum code required"
It's not even that sensitive to the wording - "be terse" or "make minimal changes" amount to the same thing - but the resulting code will often be at least 50% shorter than the un-guided version.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#27I've pretty clearly seen the critical thinking ability of coworkers who depend on AI too much sharply decline over the past year. Instead of taking 30 seconds to break down the problem and work through assumptions, they immediately copy/paste into an LLM and spit back what it tells them. This has lead to their abilities stalling while their output seemingly goes up. But when you look at the quality of their output, a…
My observations align with this pretty closely. I have a number of colleagues who I wager are largely using LLM-s, both by changes in coding style and how much they suddenly add comments, and I can't help but feel a noticeable drop in the quality of the output. Issues that should clearly have no business making it to code review are now regularly left for others to catch, it often feels like they don't even look at their own diffs. What to make of it, I'm not entirely sure. I do think there are ways LLM-s can help us work in better ways, but they can also lead to considerably worse outcomes.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not like gambling, it is gambling. you exchange dollars for chips (tokens -- some casinos even call the chips tokens) and insert it into the machine in exchange for the chance of a prize. if it doesn't work the first time you pull the lever, it might the second time, and it might not. Either way, the house wins. It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. There's no metaphor, the only difference from a sl…
> It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. That's wild. Anything with non-deterministic output will have this.
maybe more accurately anything with non-deterministic output that you have to pay-per-use instead of paying by outcome.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#29I wish more had been written about the first assertion that using an LLM to code is like gambling and you're always hoping that just one more prompt will get you what you want.
It really captures how little control one has over the process, while simultaneously having the illusion of control.
I don't really believe that code is being made verbose to make more profits. There's probably some element of model providers not prioritizing concise code, but if conciseness while maintaining "quality" was possible is would give one model a sufficient edge over others that I suspect providers would do it.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not like gambling, it is gambling. you exchange dollars for chips (tokens -- some casinos even call the chips tokens) and insert it into the machine in exchange for the chance of a prize. if it doesn't work the first time you pull the lever, it might the second time, and it might not. Either way, the house wins. It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. There's no metaphor, the only difference from a sl…
> It should be regulated as gambling, because it is. That's wild. Anything with non-deterministic output will have this.
That's incorrect, gambling is about waiting.
Brain scans have revealed that waiting for a potential win stimulates the same areas as the win itself. That's the "appeal" of gambling. Your brain literally feels like it's winning while waiting because it _might_ win.