Vibe Coding will lead to Tech Zombie Apocalypse
- Daksh Gupta
- Jul 27
- 4 min read
As a software developer with 25 years of coding experience, here’s my take on Vibe coding, which may differ from the other popular opinions out there.
Disclaimer :- The thoughts and opinion expressed here are personal and based on my own underrating of the things. I don’t claim it to be true or without any error or bias. Please use relative information and data to draw your own conclusions.
Problems and Solutions
Sometime we solve a problem and sometimes we create one to sell what we believe is the solution of the created problem.
Coding is NOT a problem, it never was, and Vibe coding is not a solution for which this problem has to be created.
In fact, if continued as propagate in its current form, it may potentially become one of the greatest problem software engineering has ever faced.
The Promise
Now imagine this, if I manages to create million dollar app or product using vibe coding in 1–2 days or even a week or month then as a rational individual what's the first thing I should do?
Instead of bragging about the same in social media, I will rather mint those millions as much as possible and as soon as possible because there is no IP (intellectual property) is associated with it and anybody can create a similar app or product using vibe coding in just a few hundred bucks.
Instead if you’re just coming and bragging about it in social media, then you’re NOT worried about your App or Product and you’re selling something else in a subtle way.
Truth, Lies and True-Lies
There is a saying that by the time truth wakes up from the bed and wear his shoes, lie has already travelled half the world.
Now truth and lies are concrete things and is related to something that has already happened i.e. they are pertaining to the past.
So, How dow we know what’s going to be a truth or lie in the future?
Frankly we don’t and this is the precise reason why we have the art of marketing and persuasion. The better you are, more and more people will believe that whatever you’re saying is going to be the ultimate truth in the future.
One of the most subtle way of marketing and convincing people is by creating an “Aura” or “Hype” around something, and vibe coding is one such “Hype”, at least as of now.
Now, let’s be honest, not not all “Hypes” are going to be lies, some are going to be the ultimate “Truth” also and this is where we need to apply our brains instead of blindly following of believing one way or the other.
The Actual Impact of AI in Software Development
I’m writing code for more than 25 years now and as per my understanding here is how A.I. is impacting or will impact the programmers.
If earlier programmers were riding horses, with A.I. they will be driving the cars.
And mind you, over the years, the cars will get better in terms of speed, performance and comfort allowing us to drive effortlessly.
Driverless cars (i.e. pure vibe coding) however, is a distant dream still, May I even say that with the current technologies it's may not even be possible.
And if the data and privacy laws are applied as it intended, the whole AI ecosystem will be paused as we know it.
The current “hype” around vibe coding is similar to asking people to use 1920’s cars as driverless cars of 2020's.
Driving 1920s cars as driverless cars of 2020s is not possible, and I believe that everyone propagating the same may have to change their goal post in the future.
The Problem — Night King and the Army of Zombies
The big problem is not about helping developers to write better code or to automate time consuming repetitive tasks.
It’s about treating A.I. as all powerful Night king (Refer: Game of Thrones) and people must follow it like a zombie just as it happened in Game of Thrones.
It didn’t ended well in Game of Thrones, and its unlikely to end well here.
Why Tech Zombies are NOT good for Software Development?
A Tech zombie is the one who follows the AI without applying his/her own brain for problem solving and vibe coding, as advertised and presented, closely resembles this.
Tech zombies will not know the meaning of raking risks, innovation, creativity and productivity, because in a world diversity and diverse thinking, all models are pretty much trained on the same data, think (if they really think) the same and works relatively the same.
Remember, A class full of students in a school or a college is taught in a similar way, given the same textbooks and taught by the same teacher, but each and every student will be different in the future, with different set of expertise.
Do you think this can happen with available Large Language Models (LLMs) or vibe code?
Unlikely I believe..
Thanks for Reading..
Daksh..
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