The Creation of the Binary and Humanity
If you’re a programmer and haven’t heard of vibe coding, you’re already behind. The term originated from a semi-self-deprecating tweet and has now become standard usage, although no one can precisely define it. Those familiar with AI-assisted programming generally know what it means: accepting AI suggestions without scrutinizing differences; copying and pasting error messages until the problem is solved; bypassing or randomly changing code that’s beyond comprehension until the bug disappears.
Vibe coding feels like a divine assistance on one hand, but on the other, it leads to constant refactoring, going in circles, solving old problems, and creating new ones. Faced with a plethora of tools, it’s hard to know which to seriously consider, and new best practices only generate more hidden bugs at a faster pace.
The technical difficulties may lie in the large language model’s insufficient context window and the lack of robust long-term memory mechanisms. But in reality, vibe coding shatters the programmer’s self-perception, trapping them in a maze built on shifting sands, exhausted and forgetting what efficiency means.
Vibe coding is somewhat like AI art from a year or two ago, looks good at first glance, but the details are wrong when zoomed in. Programming is supposed to be black and white, but reality begins to distort. The correctness of vibe coding cannot be precisely observed. Faced with the massive amount of code generated by AI, programmers quickly give up scrutiny and control. Attempting to guide AI with standards is like a rein on a wild horse, uncertain whether the rules are complete or whether they will be followed.
Gradually, programmers stop caring whether the code is correct, as it can always be changed later. In the future, most code will be written by AI, with six-fingered hands appearing and disappearing endlessly. Accepting that temporary work is everything, and change is the only constant. When international news and satirical news become indistinguishable, when all those claiming to pursue truth ultimately seek escape, everything you create will not escape the same fate.
Individuals hiding in a bubble assume everything is fine, but this is often the origin of tragedy. They see only a low-dimensional projection of a complex world, a crude narrative, a mirage. Truth falls into the dark and deep dimensional cracks. What collapses is not the world, but one’s own naive imagination. The external is not a projection of reality, but its essence. At first, you think the world is a perfect canvas, then you find more and more cracks, until you realize that the cracks are where you truly live. It’s not just vibe coding, it’s vibe living.