Noted — but honestly, that's somewhat expected. Vibe-style coding often lacks structure, patterns, and architectural discipline. That means the developer must do more heavy lifting: decide what they want, and be explicit — whether that’s 'avoid verbosity,' 'use classes,' 'encapsulate logic,' or 'handle errors properly.'
Perverse incentives of vibe coding
61–70 of 239 posts
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#62Earlier 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…
This only makes sense if you have an all or nothing concept of the value of output from AI. Every prompt and answer is contributing value toward your progress toward the final solution, even if that value is just narrowing the latent space of potential outputs by keeping track of failed paths in the context window, so that it can avoid that path in a future answer after you provide followup feedback. The vast majorit…
> One of the stupidest takes about AI is that a partial hallucination or a single bug destroys the value of the tool. If a response is 90% of the way there and I have to fix the 10% of it that doesn't meet my expectations, then I still got 90% value from that answer.
That assumes that the value of a solution is linear with the amount completed. If the Pareto Principle holds (80% of effects come from 20% of causes), then not getting that critical 10+% likely has an outsized effect on the value of the solution. If I have to do the 20% of the work that's hard and important after taking what the LLM did for the remainder, I haven't gained as much because I still have to build the state machine in my head to understand the problem-space well enough to do that coding.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#63Earlier 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…
So how exactly does that work for the $25/mo flat fee that I pay OpenAI for chatgpt. They want me to keep getting the wrong output and burning money on their backend without any additional payment from me?
For the amount of money OpenAI burns that $25/mo is functionally the same as zero - they're still in the "first one is free" phase.
Though you could say the same thing about pretty much any VC funded sector in the "Growth" phase. And I probably will.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Anything with non-deterministic output will have this. Anything with non-deterministic output that charges money ... Edit Added words to clarify what I meant.
i think at least a lot of things (if not most things) that i pay for have an agreed-upon result in exchange for payment, and a mitigation system that'll help me get what i paid for in the event that something else prevents that from happening. if you pay for something and you don't know what you're going to get, and you have to keep paying for it in the hopes that you get what you want out of it... that sounds a lot…
If I ask an artist to draw a picture, I still have to pay for the service, even if I am unhappy without the result.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#65Can 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…
This reads like "is it really gambling when I have a many-step system for predicting roulette outcomes?"
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#66> There was no standardization of parts in the probe. Two widgets intended to do almost the same job could be subtly different or wildly different. Braces and mountings seemed hand carved. The probe was as much a sculpture as a machine. > Blaine read that, shook his head, and called Sally. Presently she joined him in his cabin. > “Yes, I wrote that," she said. "It seems to be true. Every nut and bolt in that probe wa…
Yeah, I've had that thought too. I think a lot about Motie engineering versus human engineering. Could Motie engineering be practical? Is human engineering a fundamentally good idea, or is it just a reflection of our working memory of 7 +/- 2? Biology is Motie-esque, but it's pretty obvious we are nowhere near a technology level that could ever bring a biological system up from scratch. If Motie engineering is a good…
For me, "Motie engineering" always brings to mind "The Story of Mel." http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#67> Its “almost there” quality — the feeling we’re just one prompt away from the perfect solution — is what makes it so addicting. Vibe coding operates on the principle of variable-ratio reinforcement, a powerful form of operant conditioning where rewards come unpredictably. Unlike fixed rewards, this intermittent success pattern (“the code works! it’s brilliant! it just broke! wtf!”), triggers stronger dopamine respon…
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…
By this logic:
- I buy stock that doesn't perform how I expected.
- I hire someone to produce art.
- I pay a lawyer to represent me in court.
- I pay a registration fee to play a sport expecting to win.
- I buy a gift for someone expecting friendship.
Are all gambas.
You aren't paying for the result (the win), you are paying for the service that may produce the desired result, and in some cases one of may possibly desirable results.
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how exactly does that work for the $25/mo flat fee that I pay OpenAI for chatgpt. They want me to keep getting the wrong output and burning money on their backend without any additional payment from me?
For the amount of money OpenAI burns that $25/mo is functionally the same as zero - they're still in the "first one is free" phase. Though you could say the same thing about pretty much any VC funded sector in the "Growth" phase. And I probably will.
Is it really gambling, if the house always loses? :-)
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#69Earlier 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…
By this logic: - I buy stock that doesn't perform how I expected. - I hire someone to produce art. - I pay a lawyer to represent me in court. - I pay a registration fee to play a sport expecting to win. - I buy a gift for someone expecting friendship. Are all gambas. You aren't paying for the result (the win), you are paying for the service that may produce the desired result, and in some cases one of may possibly de…
>I buy stock that doesn't perform how I expected.
Hence the adage "sir, this is a casino"
Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding
#70Earlier 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…
By this logic: - I buy stock that doesn't perform how I expected. - I hire someone to produce art. - I pay a lawyer to represent me in court. - I pay a registration fee to play a sport expecting to win. - I buy a gift for someone expecting friendship. Are all gambas. You aren't paying for the result (the win), you are paying for the service that may produce the desired result, and in some cases one of may possibly de…
None of those are a games of chance, except the first.