The results of vibe coding have been far from what early enthusiasts promised. Well-known software developer Armin Ronacher powerfully described some of the issues with AI coding agents. “When [I first got] hooked on Claude, I did not sleep. I spent two months excessively prompting the thing and wasting tokens. I ended up building and building and creating a ton of tools I did not end up using much… Quite a few of the tools I built I felt really great about, just to realize that I did not actually use them or they did not end up working as I thought they would.”
Armin titled his post “agent psychosis”. The term “psychosis” is a strong label. What is it about this technology which could be trapping such productive and experienced developers? The reason may be similar to the addictive qualities of gambling, a sinister under-current of the normally positive state of flow.