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Perverse incentives of vibe coding

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Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#91

Post by [deleted] »

dingnuts wrote: post #17
vanschelven wrote: post #14

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#92

Post by cogman10 »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #64
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US? No, you actually do not need to pay for the service if you deem the quality of the output to be substandard. In particular with art, it's pretty standard to put in a non-refundable downpayment with the final payment due on delivery.

You only lose those rights in the contracts you sign (which, in terms of GPT, you've likely clicked through a T&C which waves all right to dispute or reclaim payment).

If you ask an artist to draw a picture and decide it's crap, you can refuse to take it and to pay for it. They won't be too happy about it, but they'll own the picture and can sell it on the market.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#93

Post by deadbabe »

sherburt3 wrote: post #75

Really makes you wonder where this is all going. What is going to be the thing where we say "Maybe we took this a little too far." I'm sure whatever bloated react apps we see today are nothing in comparison to the monstrosities we have in store for us in the future.

The future should be less bloat. We don’t need frameworks anymore, we can produce output to straight html pages with vanilla JavaScript. Could be good.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#94

Post by jobs_throwaway »

samtp wrote: post #20

I'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…

As someone who vibe codes at times (and is a professional programmer), I'm curious how yall go about resisting this? Just avoid LLMs entirely and do everything by hand? Very rigorously go over any LLM-generated code before committing?

It certainly is hard when I'm say writing unit tests to avoid the temptation to throw it into Cursor and prompt until it works.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#95

Post by [deleted] »

dingnuts wrote: post #17
vanschelven wrote: post #14

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#96

Post by ramoz »

I disagree with the idea that LLM providers are deliberately designing solutions to consume more tokens. We're in the early days of agentic coding, and the landscape is intensely competitive. Providers are focused on building highly capable systems to drive adoption, especially with open-source alternatives just a git clone away.

Yes, Claude Code can be token-heavy, but that's often a trade-off for their current level of capability compared to other options. Additionally, Claude Code has built-in levers for cost (I prefer they continue to focus on advanced capability, let pricing accessibility catch up).

"early days" means:

- Prompt engineering is still very much a required skill for better code and lower pricing

- Same with still needing to be an engineer for the same reasons, and:

- Devs need to actively guide these agents. This includes detailed planning, progress tracking, and careful context management – which, as the author notes, is more involved than many realize. I've personally found success using Gemini to create structured plans for Claude Code to execute, which helps manage its verbosity and focus to "thoughtful" execution (as guided by gemini). I drop entire codebases into Gemini (for free).

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#97

Post by breckenedge »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #94
samtp wrote: post #20

I'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…

As someone who vibe codes at times (and is a professional programmer), I'm curious how yall go about resisting this? Just avoid LLMs entirely and do everything by hand? Very rigorously go over any LLM-generated code before committing? It certainly is hard when I'm say writing unit tests to avoid the temptation to throw it into Cursor and prompt until it works.

Set a budget. Get rate limited. Let the experience remind you how much time you’re actually wasting letting the model write good looking but buggy code, versus just writing code responsibly.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#98

Post by brooke2k »

I don't understand the productivity that people get out of these AI tools. I've tried it and I just can't get anything remotely worthwhile unless it's something very simple or something completely new being built from the ground up.

Like sure, I can ask claude to give me the barebones of a web service that does some simple task. Or a webpage with some information on it.

But any time I've tried to get AI services to help with bugfixing/feature development on a large, complex, potentially multi-language codebase, it's useless.

And those tasks are the ones that actually take up the majority of my time. On the occasion that I'm spinning a new thing up quickly, I don't really need an AI to do it for me -- I mean, that's the easy part!

Is there something I'm missing? Am I just not using it right? I keep seeing people talk about how addictive it is, how the productivity boost is insane, how all their code is now written by AI and then audited, and I just don't see how that's possible outside of really simple rote programming.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#99

Post by Starlevel004 »

brooke2k wrote: post #98

I don't understand the productivity that people get out of these AI tools. I've tried it and I just can't get anything remotely worthwhile unless it's something very simple or something completely new being built from the ground up. Like sure, I can ask claude to give me the barebones of a web service that does some simple task. Or a webpage with some information on it. But any time I've tried to get AI services to h…

> Is there something I'm missing? Am I just not using it right?

The talk about it makes more sense when you remember most developers are primarily writing CRUD webapps or adware, which is essentially a solved problem already.

Re: Perverse incentives of vibe coding

#100

Post by mecredis »

ramoz wrote: post #96

I disagree with the idea that LLM providers are deliberately designing solutions to consume more tokens. We're in the early days of agentic coding, and the landscape is intensely competitive. Providers are focused on building highly capable systems to drive adoption, especially with open-source alternatives just a git clone away. Yes, Claude Code can be token-heavy, but that's often a trade-off for their current leve…

Hi! Author here. I don't actually think they're deliberately doing this, hence my choice of "perverse incentives" vs. something more accusatory. The issue is that they don't have a ton of incentive to fix it.

Agree with you on all the rest, and I think writing a post like this was very much intended as a gut-check on things since the early days are hopefully the times when things can get fixed up.

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