Over the weekend, I listened to this episode of Better Offline about AI and doom trolling. The episode itself is well worth a listen. And the essay that prompted it was an interesting read. But what I want to talk about today is a small portion of what they discussed… the AI “fun” factor.
It’s fun to vibe code.
(Or so I’m told, I honestly find it a lot more fun to code from scratch.)
You type what you want into a box, the machine spits some stuff out, you type some more of what you want, it (hopefully) gets a little closer to what you want, and you repeat until you have the semblance of a finished product. It does take some skill, but not the level of skill that would have been required to build a project on your own. We can debate the merits of the final product, but if you spend enough time on it, you’ll have something that works.
The point is, that after building your app, you probably feel pretty smart about having created it.
You know what else gives you that feeling of taking a small amount of skill and making you feel like a total badass? Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
Just like vibe coding, music games require you to mash your buttons in the correct order. They take your input and accelerate the output. They’re fun to play with. And they create a final product that far surpasses your actual skill level.
There’s nothing bad about playing Guitar Hero, it would be folly to pretend that you’ve suddenly transformed into Brian May. I once spent an awesome evening at Rock Band Night at PAX East, but my general preference is still to attend regular concerts.
In other words: vibe coding has its place, but I don’t think it’s replacing traditional software development anytime soon. The mistake that most people make is treating AI like it’s a software update from The Matrix. You can’t shortcut learning and experience.
I think this also explains some of the tension between vibe coders and software devs. The vibe coders are saying, “look, I made something and it’s pretty cool!” and the devs are thinking, “you’re trying to say that your Guitar Hero ‘solo’ is the same as the guitar version that I spent years perfecting.” I think that if we were all a little more clear about the differences between the products, we could focus on using these new tools in ways that are a lot more efficient and safe.
It’s on vibe coders to understand exactly what sort of content they’ve created. (hint: it’s probably got some issues with it). Using AI to spin up a prototype makes perfect sense to me. Firing most of your staff and replacing them with an LLM is madness. On the other hand, generative AI (when used thoughtfully) can be used to supplement the development process. For example, I sometimes use AI to generate Excel formulas and string parsing expressions. It would be its own type of madness to assume that everything AI touches is immediately rotten.
As they said on the podcast, AI is a tool. It’s not going to save the world, but it’s not going to destroy it either.
(The best part about that prediction is, if I’m wrong, the world will be destroyed and there won’t be anyone left to mock me for it.)
That feeling of “I created some code that does something cool” is truly wonderful. A lot of people who liked Guitar Hero decided to take guitar lessons. Hopefully all my vibe coding friends out there will start digging into software development.
