To make one thing very clear: I strongly believe that, for good or for worse, probably for both, software development _will change drastically_. Used responsibly, AI coding tools can be an incredible tool. I have used them myself. But it is despite, not because of it, that I’m weary of the debate. And antagonistic to the hype.

On February 3rd, 2025 Andrej Karpathy [published a tweet](https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383) in which he referred to a specific approach of development as «vibe coding».

> There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It's possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. […] I ask for the dumbest things like "decrease the padding on the sidebar by half" because I'm too lazy to find it. I "Accept All" always, I don't read the diffs anymore. When I get error messages I just copy paste them in with no comment, usually that fixes it. The code grows beyond my usual comprehension, I'd have to really read through it for a while. Sometimes the LLMs can't fix a bug so I just work around it or ask for random changes until it goes away. It's not too bad for throwaway weekend projects, but still quite amusing. I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding - I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.

There is a lot in it already. Frankly, it summed up the problem pretty well without realising it is a problem. We will get to that.

The term quickly catched on in development circles and beyond. It came at the right time. LLMs were becoming good at coding. Too good? We will get to that too.

So over the last year or so there has been a steady encroachment of AI into developer tools.

It has been as subtle as everywhere else. Suddenly, pressing tab in your IDE of choice doesn’t auto-fill the useful suggestion your IDE makes anyway but something a model calculcated as somehow useful. Sometimes it is, often not.

In latest versions of Cursor, one of the few products with any meaningful kind of user base and revenue (not profit, but we will get to that too!), this has become a weirdly Kafkaesque mini game where something gets generated, and if you accept it, the next generation proposes to delete the just added code – and then some.

That’s not vibe codign! Proponents of the vibe will proclaim now. Whatever. It is the default experience users of IDE with Claude, Copilot or whatever have these days. And it sucks.

## Development is a social activity – yes, even if you code alone

The section where I situate technological solutions in the realm of the social

Software engineering is really making an art out of a making a fool of itself.

But truly, it’s not just software engineering. Mathy math slop machines are shoved into every corner of the economy and our lives at breakneck speed, and [slow success](https://www.ft.com/content/e93e56df-dd9b-40c1-b77a-dba1ca01e473). Everything is generated so much that [no one is really keeping up](https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity).

But truly, it’s not just software engineering. Mathy math slop machines are shoved into every corner of the economy and our lives at breakneck speed, and [slow success](https://www.ft.com/content/e93e56df-dd9b-40c1-b77a-dba1ca01e473). Everything is generated so much that [no one can keep up anymore](https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity).

I’m sorry that happened for us all.

I’m sorry that happened, for us all.

Luckily there is:

## The future

Just kidding.

### The breakdown

### I really don’t have a PhD in economics, but how is this supposed to work?

Usage numbers of Lovable seem to have [tanked over the past few months](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chris-pisarski_is-lovable-dying-web-traffic-has-declined-activity-7381424054764806144-Vo6h). According to Deutsche Bank research, even OpenAI is [flatlining in Europe](https://fortune.com/2025/10/14/openai-subscriptions-flatlined-europe-deutsche-bank/).

Flat-lining, declining is something no capitalist will ever like to hear. But for an industry that needs exponential growth yesterday, that’s especially bad news.

##