[Alex3917]

Given that AI has made repeatedly pulling the lever on the world's biggest digital slot machine feel like building a valuable software business, is it really any wonder that a lot of the younger founders who are raising seed rounds are really just glorified tweakers? I was recently on the market for a new job, and within two months I talked with three different founders who, pre-AI, may well have been "employed" stripping bicycles for parts to sell for meth. But now, thanks to Claude and ChatGPT, these folks are now able to vibe up enough traction to raise a couple million bucks in a seed round.

The fact that most of these folks are going to fail doesn't especially bother me. After all, that was true for previous generations as well. What's different now is that a lot of these folks not only won't be coming away from these experiences having developed marketable skills, but many of them will have significant health problems that prevent them from doing so in the future.

I'm actually very bullish on the use of AI in software development overall. But when placed in the hands of folks who haven't yet had the time to develop hard skills, it both enables and incentivizes cutting corners to an alarming extent.

[throwawayoldie]

What makes the industry run, and has for decades? Adderall. What is Adderall? Amphetamines.

[Yoric]

My problem is not that they're going to fail, or even that they aren't going to learn much from their failure. It's that they're going to take many people down with them.

Just to take today's example: there's a npmjs supply chain attack. Dependabot & co are going to issue alerts. Most vibe coders aren't going to know what it's about, or even care. Which means that some of the users of vibe coded apps are going to lose their life savings over this ignorance.

[ethbr1]

Good time to be in the SaaS snake oil security subscription business...

Aka "Oh my god, I will pay you any amount of money to make this code that I don't have any idea about more secure."

[aftbit]

The crypto founder space was full of tweakers in 2014. I imagine a lot of those people have moved to AI as the latest grift on investors.

[throwawayoldie]

And the more successful of them have probably traded up to cocaine.