Man, as a former extreme skeptic, I watched a video from Eric Schmidt in early 2025 where he said that by the end of the year nobody would be coding, and that one was dead frickin on.
Man, as a former extreme skeptic, I watched a video from Eric Schmidt in early 2025 where he said that by the end of the year nobody would be coding, and that one was dead frickin on.
As far as I'm aware, aside from toy prototypes, all software is still built by humans coding, albeit with better auto-complete.
This seems to be more a problem of your awareness than a lack of projects.
Apart from every software engineer I know building almost completely with AI now there have been numerous projects posted on HN that are AI coded.
There's also Claude desktop which is famously all AI built and very widely used.
> now there have been numerous projects posted on HN that are AI coded.
Yes, all of which are toy projects and get criticized every time they are posted. On actual serious projects, not someones pet home project, I've only seen "vibe coding" used in very low risk places like small UI components. And even then they are generally heavily tweaked after the fact.
My anecdotal personal experience seem to agree with the general sentiment I see here on HN. Some people or companies do it, but with generally heavy criticism.
Have you ever considered:
- that you don't know most people in the world
- that some of the people you know are using these tools because they were forced
?
> that you don't know most people in the world
Of course.
To be clear, the claim was "all software is still built by humans coding"
I know this all software claim is false because I've seen it. Proof by example.
> that some of the people you know are using these tools because they were forced
Irrelevant to that claim.
To be clear the claim was that excluding prototypes all software is still coded by humans with AI assistance.
Even the creator of Claude code agrees with the sentiment that you can’t vibe code production software. [1]
1 https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-code-creator-vibe-cod...
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It is all very unevenly distributed. SaaS and general web is basically on auto mode.
A lot of infra is vibe coded nowadays too.
Even prototypes are contributing to the speed of software development. Many people vibe code throwaway dashboards around the main platform which gives a lot of insights.
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I guess I don't exist...
I guess the GP is joking. But on the current climate, it's really hard to be sure.
Everyone who started using claude clode when it came out in early 2025, knew it was coming (not quite yet). That felt more like reporting than prophesying.
There are whole industries that still don't let LLM-generated code touch production
You may be living in a bubble. There are tons of developers still coding by hand, and many industries that don't trust machine generated code in general.
It does raise the question, what percentage of programmers are predominantly writing code by hand? Is it higher than 50%?
Do they also not trust their code review processes?
Have you considered that they do trust their code review processes, and that they don't trust the generated code because it doesn't pass their process?
> they don't trust the generated code because it doesn't pass their process
That's not a credible scenario. Developers can either make changes by hand, or by asking an LLM, which is the common process when there is a downstream failure. Humans dont metaphorically throw their hands up and say "well the tool doesn't meet our expectations at every scale so we're not going to use it". Granted, most developers scale back how much they rely on it based on experience (good and bad).
That's very much a credible scenario. I think I use code from SO in a single digit of occasions. But I use it a lot more for giving me insight like a keyword for doing a proper web search. Or the name of a flag for a cli command, or the general shape of an algorithm or what to check in a troubleshooting session.
I won't generalize, but it's very rare for me to need code as most of my diffs are either boilerplate (generated with a tool or copied from docs or samples) or core logic that is mostly the translation of some design that I've already spent hours or days on. My core issue has always been incomplete specs from Product or incomplete docs for some tool/sdk/library (alleviated by having access to the source code).
Generated code is just not that useful, especially when designing the core architecture of a new project. And later it's not that useful either as the specs (why and how) is more valuable than any code (what).
I don’t live on a coast and I have a large and broad social network. I don’t know anyone who still mostly codes by hand except the small amount needed to preserve some aspect of their skills. I’m sorry to say that if I did I’d consider them foolish. Even a very restrictive workflow where you used an LLM to specify granular edits you intend to make is vastly faster than doing it by hand. And the level of test coverage and depth you can achieve now is simply life-changing.
It’s much more likely that you are not a professional, or you are the one in a bubble.
>Why wouldn’t careful human code review and extensive test coverage suffice?
I have come to understand that LLM generated code, even when carefully reviewed, ends up being hard to review as time progress.
This is because when you are coding yourselves, you get a first hand sense of the complexity creeping in. Then you refactor some stuff to keep complexity in check. LLMs does not "feel" such friction, and will happily keep adding on complexity until meaningful reviews are impossible beyond a certain point.
At this point, you need an LLM to review the changes and at that point, all bets are off.
This is a very good point. So many times I would refactor entire parts of the code base just because it’s getting too complicated and an easier solution was possible. AI is do often just let’s drill down all these variables, whatever
> Which ones?
Any that value correctness over speed. Banking, safety critical embedded work, aerospace work, etc.
> Why wouldn’t careful human code review and extensive test coverage suffice?
Because anyone who has been in the industry for a while knows that code review is not a substitute for intentionality and understanding when writing the code. To properly validate a change you must fully understand the intention behind it and the design at play, and then check the changes made against the system design. That is best done by a human subject matter expert (this is the role which software developers have traditionally filled, for anyone new to the industry).
> I work in one of the most conservative and highly regulated industries in the country. My company and every single one of my peer companies I have knowledge of has transitioned to almost exclusively 100% LLM-generated code (with plenty of human review).
That's called "being in a bubble".
> I don’t live on a coast and I have a large and broad social network. I don’t know anyone who still mostly codes by hand except the small amount needed to preserve some aspect of their skills. I’m sorry to say that if I did I’d consider them foolish.
And I think it's foolish to let your coding and critical thinking skills atrophy like this, but you do you.
> It’s much more likely that you are not a professional, or you are the one in a bubble.
Not even worth a reply.
I have connections in most of the industries you named and I can promise you that they are no different. I don’t particularly care whether you believe me, but I encourage you to self-examine to understand whether what you are saying is what you would like to be true (I do too!) or whether it actually is.
> I have connections in most of the industries you named and I can promise you that they are no different. I don’t particularly care whether you believe me, but I encourage you to self-examine to understand whether what you are saying is what you would like to be true (I do too!) or whether it actually is.
You are literally talking with a professional developer who is telling you that they don't use LLMs to write their code and that they have connections who also continue to do this work manually.
I don't particularly care whether you believe me either, but I encourage you to take a look around - your initial claim that coding has been automated across the industry is incorrect and you seem to be in denial about that for some reason. You should question where your priors are coming from, and remember that just because your circle is comprised of people who are heavily using LLMs does not mean the entire industry is that way.
Of course I believe that you act as you describe. But you are not an industry unto yourself.
I apologize for questioning your professionalism and wish you all the best. Truly.
So no one is in control at the wheel? Just press a button?
I can see in the future in school or on the job. Oral testing is coming back. You’re gonna have to explain everything you are doing at some point to your teacher/boss or to a panel of your peers in detail.
I mean, I code?
On a second reading I'm going to take this as sarcasm.
Dario Amodei and Eric Schmidt seem fairly well-calibrated, although a bit early. Elon Musk is constantly way, way overoptimistic (perhaps to the point of willful fraud). Zitron is hopelessly and ridiculously incompetent (and there are allegations he is willfully lying, too, but who knows).
The AGI that appeared mid 2023 and killed single every person in 8 months was neat!
Live long enough and all these apocalypses start to smell the same.
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