AI coding was supposed to be the Robin to our Batman. You know—the loyal sidekick, handling the grunt work while devs cook up brilliance. Instead? It’s turned into that friend who swears they’ll help you move… but somehow ends up eating pizza on your couch.
Welcome to vibe coding—the hype train that promised instant prototypes, one-dev startups, and lightning-fast code speedruns. And sure, the demos slapped. But in practice? It’s less “game-changer” and more “grown adults babysitting a digital toddler with root access”.
Carla Rover, a 15-year web dev veteran, once hyped it as a “beautiful, endless cocktail napkin” on which one can perpetually sketch ideas. And she’s not wrong—AI can spin napkin sketches into running code before your drink even shows up.
But here’s the gag: speed without accuracy = chaos.
And yup, a Fastly survey found 95% of devs are stuck patching AI’s “creative choices.” And who’s stuck with the mop?
Senior devs—the only ones sharp enough to catch code quietly setting itself on fire🔥.
Carla learned that lesson the hard way: her AI gleefully hallucinated packages, nuked critical info, and slipped in security risks. The result? The whole project got yeeted.
Feridoon Malekzadeh, a product dev veteran with over two decades experience also sees Vibe coding as “hiring your stubborn teenager.” For him, the AI will rebuild the same feature five different ways, dump spaghetti code all over your repo, and when confused? Just make stuff up—loudly, confidently, and very, very wrong.
And security? Yikes. Austin Spires (Fastly) says AI chases speed over safety. Mike Arrowsmith (NinjaOne) warns it can create blind spots in IT reviews. Translation: you move fast… but you also break everything.
So why stick with it? One word: output.
Even with the dreaded “innovation tax”—that extra 30–40% of time spent fixing AI’s mess—devs like Feridoon admit they still get more done with AI than without. And let’s be real: there’s still a dopamine rush in watching code fly out in seconds.
But here’s the real shift: the role of developers is changing. As younger engineer Elvis Kimara put it:
“Devs won’t just be writing code; they’ll be guiding AI systems, taking accountability when things break, and acting more like consultants to machines.”
In other words, it’s less about typing every line yourself—and more about babysitting your digital intern. Correcting them, redirecting them, and still somehow hitting deadlines.
And that’s the punchline: being an AI babysitter isn’t a downgrade, it’s an upgrade.
Developers aren’t losing relevance—they’re leveling up. In fact, working with AI-generated code has become such a headache that it’s literally spawned a new role: the “vibe code cleanup specialist.”
Because here’s the truth: AI doesn’t erase expertise; it demands it.
So yeah, vibe coding isn’t the flawless wand it was hyped to be. But it’s also not going anywhere. The future of dev isn’t man vs. machine—it’s man with machine. And right now? That means patience, oversight, and a whole lot of babysitting 👶💻.
If you’ve got your own vibe coding stories—success, failure, or complete meltdown—drop them or better still go learn more about this new phenomenon here.
