I work for a large AI team (think one of the big ones... Won't say which). And our CEO gave a short but quite clear talk: you HAVE to vibecode. He will check how much we vibe code, how many PRs etc, and will act accordingly.

Now. I work in the infra team. What this vibe code mandate means for me is that my work will become unsustainable. I will forecast hordes of PRs impossible to review in time, bloated to the roof. And I can't push them back for the fear of being reported to the CEO. On the other hand, I'll be measured based on the stability of the infra, which will of course collapse.

While I see more and more people, even smart people I admire(d), like Karpathy or Antirez, talk wonder about AI coding in a way that looks way, way too similar to how people endorsed Theranos, I face the daily reality that AI coding doesn't work for me. It's wonderful to kickstart a project I don't want to do. But taking home a big architecture refactor or an improvement in the infra... That's not what AI excels at, to say the least.

AI is great at throwaway code. AI is great at things you don't know how to do. But for infrastructure... In general, for things that OTHER PEOPLE RELY ON and that NEED TO BE MAINTAINED... it's going to end very badly.

But I am losing focus, sorry. What is crazy is that I can't publicly speak about this because I'd get fired. Can you believe it? I am easily the best engineer at the company. Literally EVERYONE thanked me for the contribution to the infrastructure. And still, I am afraid of losing my job because I can't say: AI can't do this.

And given the shitton of stocks I have and cannot sell, I must hope that this obvious hype will continue long enough to pay for my mortgage.

A new Theranos is in the making.