You are not alone: https://rgoldfinger.com/blog/2025-07-26-claude-code-is-a-slo...
> Are we at the point of doing rain dances for these models and describing the moves as "counterintuitive and sublte"
Yes, we are. LLM cultists can downvote as much as they like, but the reality is that with all the incantations and coaxing, we not only don't see a positive effect, we see a net negative effect on the quality of our software. On the ground level of OSS we are drowning in AI generated slop: https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/15/curl_creator_mulls_ni...
On the enterprise level we are creating more and worse code, faster. In the news, we are generating more and worse and factually wrong articles, faster. In our personal lives, guided by our sycophantic LLMs assistants, we offload more and more cognitive chores, becoming dumber and dumber.
LLM-produced slop is like the plastic of text: cheap and easy to use and proliferate, and then 40 years later you realize it's everywhere in the environment and in your brain, and that it's toxic to all life.
Yes, by the same logic arsenic has many pros (and some cons, admittedly) in paint production, thorium is a not bad material for toothpaste (google it), and asbestos is just dandy for fire insulation (with some teeny tiny negatives for your lungs).
The fact that plastic is in the bloodstream of every living being and it's a strong endocrine disruptor and there is literally a garbage patch of it floating in our oceans is a small price to pay for the convenience and pleasure of drinking coca-cola from a lighter-than-glass bottle! Fantastic material indeed! What other fantastic materials are there? Lead for pipes? White phosphorus for matches?
Sure, if you want to do with 100 developers what 10 can do better, cheaper and faster, don't spend time on code quality. Just vibe it. More work for the experts to fix that mess later.
"Gambling-like behavior in pigeons: ‘jackpot’ signals promote maladaptive risky choice"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06641-x
The tech industry is actively promoting gambling addiction and the scary thing is that people are willingly walking into that trap.
Downvote all you like, or ignore this. Agency is being taken away from us, no one gets to say we didn't see it coming down the line because we did and we said something and our peers treated us like ignorant and self interested for pointing out the obvious.