All vibe coding tools are selling a get rich quick scheme

I was at a coffee shop a little while ago with some friends and a stranger was sitting near us working on his laptop. Someone from our group decided to strike up a conversation with him and the stranger started telling us about how now they have these AI tools that can have you make an app in a few hours and without knowing how to code. He was not a software person but look at what he is able to do with it. The implication was that he has an idea and was going to make it a reality as quickly as possible using whatever AI tools he was using.

I am not sure what the moral of the story is but it reminds me a bit of that parable about the investor getting his shoes shined and the shoe shine kid giving him investment advice.

Partially I think the idea of an app being so valuable that it makes money without being connected to anything is just not really a thing. Some games (Flappy Bird anyone?) can be like that or some very specific type of lifestyle app, but for the most part you need a real world service connected or it will not be seen as valuable. But perhaps I am wrong.

People say this, but you'll know it's real or not when the world will drown in a mountain of AI-authored shovelware from non-engineers.

A bunch of Tesla drivers think they have an autonomous driving car, too. Doesn't make it reality. My brother thinks he's going to make "an AI agent" to discern bias in news when he himself has the information literacy of an ignorant ipad baby.

To be fair, we are currently drowning in a mountain of AI-written blogspam that makes using most popular search engines nearly impossible to find basic information. And honestly I am sure the app stores are full of apps that nobody wants and nobody uses because who needs another calculator or alarm clock app?

Was he pushing the money making angle? Because from the description you gave my impression was that he was empowered to make things, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I met a homeless person that is attempting to dig their way out through vibe coding via empty promises from video marketers telling them they can make $10k a month passive income. This shit is really abusive. I didn't know what to say to her, because she was gripping onto it like her one hope.

You won't find me arguing that AI can't dramatically speed up the process of a bad writer writing dreck, or somewhat speed up the process of a good writer writing something worth reading.

The evidence isn't quite clear yet for software.

From what I gather he was “doing very important business things”. Like I said, I don’t know if the moral here is that everyday people now have access to technology that before required massive investment in learning programming so we should expect amazing things or if the moral of the story is that a ton of people are going to get scammed or if it is that we are going to see the same thing happen to our industry as what happened to journalism when social media became a thing.

¿Por qué no los dos?