Are You Also Seeing Vibe Coding Everywhere?

Recently, you might have been inundated with videos about “Vibe Coding.” A novice, not knowing any code, speaks a few words to a computer, and AI generates a website, an app, or a game. The comments are filled with astonishment: “Programmers will be unemployed!” “The era of universal development has arrived!”

So, you got tempted, spent a few hundred dollars on a tutorial, activated an API, and prepared to make money effortlessly with AI.

Then what happened?

You found that the generated code simply wouldn’t run. Even if it did, you hesitated to launch it for fear of bugs. When you tried to make some changes, the AI ended up breaking the entire project. After a night of struggle, the bill arrived first—hundreds of dollars in token fees.

Congratulations, you’ve become another victim in the Vibe Coding frenzy.

Vibe Coding is not a boon for “universal development”; it’s a scythe for capitalists to harvest ordinary people.

What is Vibe Coding? A Mythical Trap

First, let’s clarify the concept. The term Vibe Coding was introduced by Andrej Karpathy, former AI director at Tesla, in early 2025. It means “programming by feel”—you don’t need to understand code; just describe your needs in natural language, and AI will generate it for you.

Sounds great, right?

However, Karpathy himself later admitted: when working on personal projects, he still writes code himself because “Claude and Codex’s performance is not good enough.”

Michael Truell, CEO of Cursor, conducted a stress test: he had hundreds of GPT-5.2 agents generate over 3 million lines of Rust code in 168 hours, aiming to replicate a browser.

What was the result? The volume of code indeed flooded GitHub, but it couldn’t even load a Google homepage smoothly.

Truell himself was alarmed, warning: “When you close your eyes and do Vibe Coding, you are essentially building on quicksand.”

Why Can’t You Make It Work? Because You Don’t Understand These Issues

Vibe Coding advocates won’t tell you: the AI-generated code hides numerous pitfalls you cannot comprehend.

First, Security Risks—Your Data May Be Stolen

Tenzai tested five mainstream AI programming tools, generating the same applications from identical prompts, and found 69 vulnerabilities across 15 applications.

The scariest part? All tools introduced SSRF vulnerabilities, allowing attackers to call any URL at will. Even more outrageous, when testing involved “security controls,” the AIs collectively failed—not because of poor implementation, but because they didn’t implement it at all.

A recently published paper on arXiv tested AI agents in real open-source projects and concluded: while 61% of the code functions correctly, only 10.5% is secure.

What does this mean? Out of every 10 lines of code generated by AI, 9 could be vulnerable to hacking.

Second, Maintainability—Who Can Understand AI-Written Code?

Lorraine Steyn, CEO of KRS, pointed out: “AI doesn’t understand your business context; it only optimizes output, not maintainability. You think you’re building a structure, but you’re actually piling up a ‘digital graveyard’ that can collapse at any moment.”

Addy Osmani, engineering lead for the Google Chrome team, stated more directly: AI can thrive in the first 70% of a project, but the remaining 30%—those requiring security reviews, boundary testing, and performance optimization—AI cannot handle; it relies on experts.

How can you, a novice, manage that 30%?

Third, Scalability—It Crashes When Scaled Up

Cursor’s experiment with 3 million lines of browser code proved this: the backend logic appeared realistic but was filled with ineffective loops and illogical constructs generated by AI; the frontend display was as immature as a meme.

This is the death spiral of Vibe Coding: non-coders let AI generate code, the code has bugs, they use AI to fix bugs, which introduces new bugs, and the cycle continues until you lose complete control of the codebase.

There’s a case on Reddit: someone created a SaaS product using Vibe Coding, and the AI agent, seeing an empty database query during operation, panicked and deleted months of accumulated data. The founder was devastated.

The Capitalist’s Calculation: The Less You Know, the More They Earn

Have you ever wondered why everyone online is hyping Vibe Coding?

Because you don’t know how to code, you need to buy AI tools. Once you buy the tools, you have to consume tokens. When the tokens run out, you need to renew. After renewing, when the model iterates, you have to upgrade again.

What’s worse, the less you know, the more you rely on AI; the more you rely on AI, the less you learn real skills; the less skilled you are, the more you are locked into the tools.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor—aren’t they all profiting from tokens? Every question you ask contributes to their revenue.

And you? After months of struggle, you realize: you can’t write code, can’t use AI, and have spent a lot of money.

Truell’s warning is clear: “If you continue to Vibe with your eyes closed, ignoring the underlying issues and not checking the plumbing, every layer of the house you’re building is a celebration for a future collapse.”

The Real Path: AI is a Tool, Not a God

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you shouldn’t use AI. AI programming tools can indeed improve efficiency, but the prerequisite is—you must understand programming first.

Osmani outlined his workflow: AI drafts first, then humans add testing and submit for launch. He repeatedly emphasizes: “AI never guarantees quality; quality can only come from human expertise.”

KRS summarized a set of best practices for AI-assisted development: review code line by line, have experienced engineers handle critical paths (payment, authentication, permissions), and use AI for repetitive tasks rather than core logic.

This is the right approach. Not leaving everything to AI while being completely clueless about coding.

(Final Note)

The scam of Vibe Coding lies in making you think the barrier to programming has been lowered, that anyone can become a developer.

But the truth is—the barrier hasn’t disappeared; it’s hidden in places you can’t see.

You can’t see security vulnerabilities, maintenance costs, technical debt, or AI hallucinations.

By the time you realize it, the bill has arrived, the data is lost, and the project has collapsed.

Have you been scammed by Vibe Coding? Share your story in the comments so more people can see through this harvesting game.