I was talking today with someone who works as a programmer at Meta. He told me that until recently his job was to create tools for
programmers at Meta.
But now, with the recent push to incorporate A.I., he spends his time building tools for people to do vibe coding. That’s the flavor of “programming” where you tell an A.I. what you want, and it builds it for you.
He was bemoaning the implications of this, since an A.I. does not actually create new code — it just remixes code that had already, at some point in the past, been created by an actual creative human. So if everybody starts to adopt this practice, eventually it might all devolve into A.I. sludge.
I told him that the situation reminded me of Betty Crocker. At some point a team at the company which eventually became General Mills got the ingenious idea of giving homemakers the feeling of being expert bakers, without being required to go through the trouble of learning many of the details of professional baking.
On the back of many Betty Crocker boxes was a recipe: Mainly, add water to the included pre-mixed packet of powder, put it in the oven, and wait for your delicious cake to emerge.
But here is the brilliant part: The recipe also told you to crack open an egg, and add that into the mix. So you weren’t just mixing powder and water. Adding in that egg made you feel like a real baker.
Vibe coding provides a similar sense of satisfaction, without that annoying need to learn a difficult skill. You feel like you’re actually creating something, and it can feel great while you’re doing it.
But don’t expect to create any amazing new recipes.