Vibe coding - lovable AI, is it going to replace dev?
Hello, I was in a meeting, one of the person use the lovable AI to create an entire web app. I didn't used it yet, just heard of it, that's incredible how this thing can like literally generate a web app from scratch, I felt really astonished, are people going to use that instead of front-end dev/back-end dev?
18 Replies
to make cookie-cutter ai slop that everybody has? sure
just wait until scammers copy the app/website and you can't dmca them because you don't own the copyright of it 🤣
The thing is, I'm a bit frustrated about that. I participated in a hackathon last month and seeing this AI, I realised that maybe the winners make use of this AI because the design were almost similar but don't know
well, lets put it like this: can you make and debug a website on your own?
hmm
if I'm writing my own website, then yes
The answer is still NO. Won’t change without some massive shift in technology.
The only jobs AI is coming for are those who can’t do their job right now
it won't replace jobs, but people are pushing it as a tool that accelerates your work
and I really hate that 😭
like it seems that companies expect you to make use of AI
which is stupid
but at some point it's becoming useless, we may have poor codebase
yup
Yeah, using it can make you more efficient. But you still need to use your brain
The way I look at the AI problem is that yes, AI can do some pretty cool stuff (or at least that's what it seems like, I haven't delved too much into it). But there will always be people that need to know how to actually build websites or write code in order to debug, and also to solve business issues. So what I'm saying is people will need to know how to code in order to solve issues from management or the client that revolve around unique business requirements, which isn't possible to prompt the AI with unless you know what you're talking about I don't think
The kicker is that AI can only regurgitate code it’s already scanned and processed—it can’t write anything new. That’s why it can’t tell you how to write code for the new version of anything. It needs to steal code from others first
Like for example just yesterday, I went to implement a simple css parallax for a client. The
background-attachment: fixed wasn't working well on mobile for their website, and the solutions I found online weren't working because they suggested adding a separate element into the HTML. Well, for this client I don't have access to editing the HTML except through JS via DOM manipulation, and at that point I was essentially going to have to create a library from scratch... so I ended up just going with a simple library to do it for me. But kind of highlights what I'm talking about
Someone who doesn't know how to code wouldn't understand their options and it would be hard to prompt the AI if you don't knowand you have to send your client's code to the ai overlords as well
Beginners that are relying on AI won’t get very far imo. It doesn’t take long in a thread before the model screws something up (and that’s even without acknowledging that usually the approach is not efficient or a good way to go about the prompt), and the beginner can’t read the code to identify where the problem is.
Maybe it will save you 40m in the beginning but then the time spent debugging when it inevitably screws up — often takes longer in the end then just writing it yourself from the beginning.
I find AI helpful for tasks like commenting my files for me or suggesting refactors to make it more DRY or efficient. Suggesting and discussing , not just let it go wild on the code though. Converting data , like from an object to a csv or a table to an object - caveat being I still have to check through thoroughly as it more often then not makes mistakes. Esp if it needs to generate anything based on the established pattern.
Basically my rule of thumb is using it as a tool to convert or annotate existing codebase or data - not generating anything from scratch.
AI is smart autocomplete at best. Compare Cursor and Devin. Cursor aims to augment dev efforts, increasing productivity. Devin however tried to replace (not successfully).
So while many jobs are at risk of loss, AI is not going to replace the profession, just like the calculator didn't replace mathematicians
the calculator replaced the computers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)
and such smaller jobs may be replaced, like replacing a wix for ai slop cookie cutter hosted on a free domain