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Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

by softirq on 6/4/25, 7:31 PM with 24 comments

While originally I was an LLM skeptic, I was also eager to gain insight into it’s true capabilities, and recently I’ve reached the tipping point of existantial dread - I no longer feel any joy while coding. I’m no longer an artisan enjoying the journey of creating, I’m now truly a cog designed to review factory output until even that role is no longer required.

My biggest feeling right now is an immense sense of loss. My belief was that the purpose of one’s life is found through acts of creation. The painter finds joy in painting, and the result is valued because of the effort involved. This feels like an attack on all intellectual pursuits, including the arts, but it’s especially hard considering the technology seems to have the most value at replacing its creators.

Where do we go from here? So many of my friends have talked about switching fields, as we watch this miracle field edge towards becoming a facsimile of itself. I am personally left with many questions about my own future.

  • by taklimakan on 6/4/25, 10:44 PM

    I don’t get it. Is anyone forcing you to vibe code? If you don’t like vibe coding, don’t do it. The time you save when vibe coding is offset almost 1:1 by the time you need to verify the AI’s output for all but the most trivial applications. And even then, were you happy writing trivial code?

  • by hamhead27 on 6/4/25, 8:47 PM

    There is a sad reality and truthfulness is that you're probably experiencing that dread for nothing. Tech is moving forward but there is an underlying hype thesis that has really yet to become a reality.

    The creators at these companies are making all their bets that the switch between interpolate and extrapolate will happen at sometime in the very near future.

    If and when that fails to materialize (as I think you could argue some companies are already recognizing is coming, ie Microsoft), the bubble will burst.

  • by rogerkirkness on 6/4/25, 7:38 PM

    I think the reality is that software engineering, and soon all knowledge work, are going to transform profoundly like you're noticing.

    Where we go depends on the philosophy we apply, and there's way too little philosophy for what to do when AI upends your intellectual craft profession.

    All businesses exist to serve a customer, and to help them achieve the outcomes they desire, so to the extent that you can apply these skills to those outcomes then you'll continue to be gainfully employed in a business context.

    I think zero sum applications of software like internal tools with fixed scopes will rapidly be automated away with these tools. By comparison, positive sum product engineering of novel technologies seem like they are still hiring.

    Would focus on bridging your technical skills into product engineering and deeply understanding a specific customer domain, invest in EQ through coaching and therapy and continue adopting AI tools to optimize your work.

  • by d--b on 6/7/25, 2:54 AM

    You could argue that photography didn’t kill all painting or that Ikea didn’t kill all manual woodworking.

    But photography created a lot more images and ikea allowed people to own a lot more furniture.

    If we draw a parallel, it means that we’re going to see a lot more production of tech stuff. Like tailor made video games for a specific individual, custom apps for local businesses / institutions, etc.

    This could lead to a lower dependency on the big platform, and perhaps to actually more work.

    Impossible to be sure though

  • by ivape on 6/4/25, 8:27 PM

    This has nothing to do with AI and the nature of coding going forward. Ask HN has regularly been a depression/burn-out sounding board for years. My final conclusion on it is that there is a large number of people here who have relied on external validation to find happiness. The thing you create, the job you have, the money you make, the role or title you have, the degree - none of these things are internal, all external. This is never sustainable and leads to emotional turbulence.

  • by Dumblydorr on 6/5/25, 2:44 AM

    Not only LLMs, even recorded music and modern ubiquity causes me dread. I play because I enjoy it but it’s not any concrete improvement on the world, and enough music already exists for all needs forever. And AI will eventually generate new random works. It’s a bit depressing I agree, when historically musical talent was needed whenever music wanted to be heard.

  • by kody on 6/5/25, 12:03 AM

    > I’m no longer an artisan enjoying the journey of creating

    me the first time my boss forced me to unit test my code

    ...

    The best thing you can do is listen to your gut and try to act as rationally as you can.

    Talk with trusted mentors if you've got them. Don't listen to me and for the love of god don't listen to people on HN or reddit or Youtube or any other social media.

    Nobody knows what they're talking about and they certainly don't know how it'll impact you.

    If somebody is making you feel afraid, left behind/out, inferior -- they're trying to sell you shit. Don't listen to the bullies and con artists.

    You're entitled to your opinion. If you think AI output is crap, it's crap. Don't be pressured to conform. This is supposed to be hackernews after all. There are plenty of companies using java 8 today. You won't be unhireable.

  • by jf22 on 6/5/25, 2:35 PM

    When the loom came out the people who loved weaving by hand stopped being as valuable.

    That's where we are right now. The best bespoke hand-crafted coders are far less valuable than they used to be.

    It sucks for the weavers who loved to weave, but this is the consequence of technological progress.

  • by sherdil2022 on 6/4/25, 8:08 PM

    Same here. I am not able to pull myself to write code - since it is all a “prompt away” - for better or worse.

    And when I did use LLMs, I found that they were wasting time by spitting some code that I have to then piece together, troubleshoot or debug.

  • by deverman on 6/6/25, 5:21 AM

    I'm just trying to keep a frame of mind that there are new problems to solve and bigger problems can be solved by smaller teams of people.

  • by aristofun on 6/5/25, 3:42 AM

    You’ve got it wrong in the first place!

    > The painter finds joy in painting, and the result is valued because

    Engineers are not painters in one very fundamental way!

    Painter’s product is an asset. Software engineer’s code is a liability.

    Painter is an artist, creating art. Its primary purpose is in itself.

    Software engineer is a craftsman, he creates a mean to an end. A tool to reach product/business goal.

  • by itake on 6/5/25, 12:59 AM

    LLMs allow me to create more. I get to solve more difficult problems. I get to solve more business problems. I get to create more.

    Instead of spending days updating a software package to the latest version, to get the exact same features I already had, I can focus my time prioritizing features and designing the code infrastructure.

  • by colesantiago on 6/4/25, 10:38 PM

    You do realise that there will be new jobs that AI will produce right?

    With abundance coming around the corner for coding, anyone write code, which means software engineers will be needed more than ever.

    There will always be new jobs.