Vibe coders can't stop losing

A critical take on AI coding hype, citing research showing experienced developers are 19% slower with AI, AI-generated code has 45% security flaw rates, and developers who used AI scored lower on learning assessments (50% vs 67%) than those who didn't. An Alibaba study on 18 AI agents across 100 real-world repos found only 25% of codebases didn't break immediately after 8 months of autonomous operation. The argument is that AI is a useful tool in specific contexts but not the universal productivity multiplier it's hyped to be, and that layoffs attributed to AI are more about stock price optics than genuine automation. Core engineering skill — problem solving — remains irreplaceable.