alt Hacker News> your analogy I don't think AI does mass-produced paperbacks
It's the article's analogy, not mine.
And, are you really saying that people aren't regularly mass-vibing terrible software that others use...? That seems to be a primary use case...
Though, yes, I'm sure it'll become more common for many people to vibe their own software - even if just tiny, temporary, fit-for-purpose things.
I think existing skilled programmers are leveraging AI to increase productivity.
I think there are some people with limited, or no, programming experience who are vibe coding small apps out of nothing. But I think this is a tiny fraction of people. As much as the AI might write code, the tools used to do that, plus compile, distribute etc are still very developer focused.
Sure, one day my pastor might be able to download and install some complete environment which allows him to create something.
Maybe it'll design the database for him, plus install and maintain the local database server for him (or integrate with a cloud service.)
Maybe it'll get all the necessary database and program security right.
Maybe it'll integrate well with other systems, from email to text-import and export. Maybe that will all be maintainable as external services change.
Maybe it'll be able to do support when the printing stops working, or it all needs to be moved to a new machine.
Maybe this environment will be stable enough for the years and decades that the program will be used for. Maybe updating or adding to the program along the way won't break existing things.
Maybe it'll work so well it can be distributed to others.
All this without my pastor even needing to understand what a "variable" is.
That day may come. But, as well as it might or might not write code today, we're a long long way from this future. Mass producing software is a lot more than writing code.