Over lunch last week, a friend and I had an interesting discussion about the future of computer programming. At his startup, he makes extensive use of machine learning and large language models but still writes plenty of code. He called this "AI-assisted coding", in contradistinction to "vibe coding”, whereby people who don't know how to code ask the LLM chatbot to generate all the code for them. He also noted that when an LLM generates code, you have to get really good at reading code - a skill that even old-style programmers haven't traditionally cultivated or enjoyed.
Our conversation came back to me on reading Arnold Kling's post this morning about the futility of teaching young people to write. The LLMs will soon be better than 90% of human writers, so why teach people to do so? Let the LLMs do the writing and instead teach people how to edit what the LLMs produce!
Yet I suspect that vibe writing will be no more successful than vibe coding, in large measure because reading itself is becoming a lost art. Furthermore, since writing is a form of thinking, if you haven't developed the skill of formalized thinking through writing and reflective reading then your interaction with an AI chatbot will essentially be nothing more than vibe thinking.
This will not end well for society. But I, for one, won't go there.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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