Maybe you've never even heard of vibe-coding - it's a pretty recent phenomenon - but it's all the rage in the technology world. Essentially, vibe-coding is using an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to allow amateurs and non-coders to create functioning software and websites.
Sounds easy, eh? You just use a vibe-coding platform like Lovable or Cursor (recent start-ups already worth billions of dollars), or even more familiar large language models like Gemini or Claude or ChatGPT, and use everyday conversational prompts, and the AI does the rest.
Except, of course, it's not as simple as that, as the Globe article explains. It can be a confusing and frustrating experience, and the AI is quite likely to throw out buggy software full of security risks, that doesn't bear any resemblance to the masterpiece you had in mind, and quite likely doesn't even work. One study found that AI models introduced known security flaws about 45% of the time. In fact, a whole sub-industry has grown up of humans - "vibe-coding clean-up specialists" - who can fix the errors in amateur vibe-coding projects.
In the hands of experienced coders, though, vibe-coding can be a substantial time-saver (saving several hours each week according to some). Using it, startups can grow faster, with fewer employees. Vibe-coding for individuals, though, can prove expensive, as the platforms charge for credits to use its services which, as we have seen, can be inefficient and frustrating. University computer science professors are having to adapt too, such as by insisting that students walk teachers through their code to make sure they actually understand how it works.
Some studies have found that, overall, vibe-coding does not really improve productivity. Aficionados, of course, just see this as teething problems in a new and emerging industry. The proof will emerge over time. Although, by then, some new breakthrough will no doubt have materialized, upending everything we thought we knew :(
No comments:
Post a Comment