Vibe coding may be hazardous to open source

Tailwind Labs CEO Adam Wathan recently blamed AI for forcing him to lay off three workers. Tailwind Labs oversees the development of the open source Tailwind CSS framework. And according to Wathan, AI coding tools came between the company and its customers, reducing traffic to the website, which in turn hit product exposure …

[Blackjack]

Even if it may cause an economic crisis I can't wait for the AI Bubble to pop.

[Pascal Monett]

Whatever economic crisis it will cause will only concern people who already have way too much money.

The kebab shop, the supermarkets, your friendly baker are not concerned.

[druck]

That's not how post bubble recessions work.

Those who have way too much money will have a bit less way too much, the rest of us feel the effects far more in job losses and huge amounts wiped off pension funds.

AI has to die though.

[Anonymous Coward]

You remember the start of the pandemic? Shops were cleaned out of most things. I'm sure there were some huge profits all round. What happened next though? Did these companies and supermarkets sit back and think this is great? No, the first thing they did when they realised people had bought too much stuff meaning they would buy less for a while is put prices up to keep the growth and profits going.

When this bubble bursts those people will be looking to get their money back from whatever portfolio they are invested in. Even though that bubble is not connected to the things you mentioned they will have an excuse to put prices up and they will use it. If there is one thing I've learnt over the years is that in rampant out of control capitalism if you give them an excuse to increase prices they will take it. When one kebab shop, supermarket or baker puts their prices up every single other follows. Competition died a long time ago.

[Charlie Clark]

The pandemic was not a financial crash. The last financial crash of 2007/2008 imposed real costs on people because the loose monetary policy caused what's caused financial repression – savers were effectively punished and debtors rewarded. This helped stabilise financial markets, but it also drove inequality and asset inflation.

[Anonymous Coward]

savers were effectively punished and debtors rewarded.

Every UK government since 1997 has punished savers and rewarded debtors, that's why we're in such shit shape today.

[Roland6]

They've been punishing savers for significantly longer than that. Punishing savers is a deliberate and direct consequence of running an economic model with inflation at its heart.

It would be interesting if the rate banks borrowed from the public (aka savers) was also linked to the Bank of England's Base Rate...

[Roland6]

I assume you were being satirical.

[Pickle Rick]

Prevention is better than cure

> "All the energy put into meta discussions right now seems wasted until we find a new normal." - Ronacher

Strong disagree. The "AI" tools are coming regardless, the "meta discussions" are our only hope[1] of curtailing run-away madness. Once that "new normal" is established the next step will be more readily accepted. The trajectory should be discussed early days.

[1] Excluding Obi Wan (anyone got an R2 unit I could borrow?)

[jake]

Cheer up.

Jive coding is just the latest way that management has convinced itself that it can cut costs.

When the bubble bursts and we all point and giggle as the market corrects itself, the entire concept will disappear in the puff of smoke & mirrors that it is, and jive coding will be gone overnight, along with about half the value of the Dow and NASDAQ.

[Pickle Rick]

Re: Cheer up.

Oh, stewardess, I can code jive:

10 LAYSOMELINESDOWN "Hey, cats and kittens!"

20 SCRAMTO 10

"Shi man I ain neba mo fo gwine ain."

/AndScene

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cheer up.

along with about half the value of the Dow and NASDAQ

Taking peoples' pensions with them, of course.

[YetAnotherLocksmith]

Re: Cheer up.

A pension? In this economy??

[that one in the corner]

Wait for a "new normal"

But based upon what pricing?

Even if they don't deliberately play silly buggers, the AI pricing *has* to change. So we are just supposed to twiddle our thumbs over the issues until the finances are sorted, by which time how much avoidable damage has been done? Even if (the biggest if you've seen) AI coding turns out to be useful, but then suddenly becomes uneconomic, we're left with half-completed mods everywhere...

[Richard 12]

"share some of the LLM revenue"

The thing is, LLMs make a loss so large that you can see it from Alpha Centauri.

So while the mass-scale copyright infringement companies have to start paying licence fees, it's not going to matter fairly soon because they're all gonna die.

The only question is whether they collapse quickly enough not to take the real economy down with them.

[jake]

Re: "share some of the LLM revenue"

Unfortunately, that fake economy is about equal to the real economy.

It'll get ugly for a couple years ... but the sooner it happens, the faster we'll recover.

[ChoHag]

So in other words you weren't doing any marketing and when that stopped working because of the trillion dollar email summariser you fired the techies instead of the person who decided his company didn't need a marketing department?

Well played.

[YetAnotherLocksmith]

They were the marketing department though. The whole point of offering a limited product and a better paid for one is marketing the paid solution. It's been that way for a long time.