Vibe Coding Will Change The World!
Morning sunlight draped the building’s facade while salaried workers of all departments poured through the cubicle maze to their stations, many passing through the IT section where Katie and Lucas had both settled in their ergonomic chairs for the long day. Strutting down the aisle in his blue designer suit came Terrence, from the sales team, and he caught the software developers’ attention with a wave. Katie pulled out her earbuds, letting slip a soft groan.
“Guess what I did this weekend?” Terrence beamed with pride. “I learned vibe coding!”
Lucas perked up. “Vibe coding? You mean, where you tell a chatbot what app you want to build and it writes all the code for you?”
“It’s a gimmick,” scoffed Katie. “Computers can’t actually write good code so you still need a living, breathing developer to fix it up, if there’s anything salvageable. Just a scam, really.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” Terrence retorted, leaning in closer. “Vibe coding will change the world! The tools? Getting better every day. Barriers to entry? None. Anyone can build anything they want. You have an idea, you hit a few keys and — POOF! — there it is. For example — check this out — I vibe-coded a program to invent time travel.”
“Uh, what?”
“Yep. All I had to do was say, ‘hey, uh, AI guy, you do all the research and come up with the designs and stuff to figure out how time travel works and then write a program that will operate a time machine’. It’s running on my laptop at home right now, doing research and testing and, you know, whatever.”
“But Terrence,” Katie giggled, “you have a degree in marketing. You don’t know anything about physics.”
“That’s the magic of vibe coding! The AI will figure it out for me.”
Lucas scratched his temple. “I don’t know. Scientists are nowhere near understanding how time travel could work. You think an AI instance could do it?”
“Sure, buddy,” replied Terrence. “Those things are like artificial brains but smarter, so if you give one enough time to think it over, even if it takes years, then why couldn’t it? But I was thinking…when it does work, my future self can let me know by sending a message back in time.”
At that, the developers exploded in laughter. “Yeah, maybe it will appear right in front of you, like an Amazon package from the future,” Katie joked. “Poof!”
“No, see, that’s not how I’d handle it at all,” mused Terrence in all seriousness, “because, think about it — what if someone is walking by as a box from the future materializes in their spot? Sounds like it could be gruesome. No, it would be smarter to drop a box from above, from a low altitude…” His gaze wandered to the wide picture window spilling daylight into the cubicles, then over the building’s parking lot and, beyond, the rolling grass hills of the corporate park even as the other two continued their snickering. “Somewhere open…and soft…”
He turned around and marched through the office the way he had come. The two developers shared confused glances, falling again to hysterics. Regaining her composure, Katie remarked, “This vibe coding craze is getting out of hand. Even if Terrence could pull off something like that, imagine how dangerous–”
“Look,” interrupted Lucas, pointing to the window. Outside, Terrence could be seen jogging to the far end of the parking lot, through the grass and further still, eventually stopping where he appeared but a small speck from the distance of the office, out there in the hills, and there he stared skyward and waited.
The developers watched this weird scene, unchanging, for over a minute until something came into view in the sky above Terrence. The object floated slowly down, attached to a small parachute. At last it landed in front of him on the ground — some cardboard box, suitcase sized. He tossed aside the parachute and tore open the box’s lid. The contents were too small to discern from the window but Terrence scooped them up one by one, examining each. He gathered these items in his arms and sprinted back to the parking lot and to his BMW where he tossed the strange discoveries in the backseat, hopped into the front and drove away, screeching his tires and swerving wildly.
Bewildered, the developers decided to return to their computer monitors and their obliviousness and to await Terrence’s return for the answers they couldn’t fathom. They joked about the incident throughout the day but still never saw the salesman even as shadows outside stretched and faded.
Later, an urgent email dropped in everyone’s inboxes, directing all eyes to the common area in the center of the room for a forthcoming special announcement. At the unorthodox message and its hurried tone, Katie and Lucas exchanged curious looks.
When they rose from their chairs, with the rest of the office like prairie dog heads springing from their cubicles, the common area was revealed to be occupied with some of the company’s executives, standing tense and pursed, flanked by half a dozen soldiers decked in camouflage and body armor. In the middle of them was Terrence, a Kevlar vest strapped over his suit. This sight sparked alarm among the employees to which Terrence lifted his hands in a gesture of calm.
“Hey team!” he proclaimed loudly for the whole room to hear. “Sorry for the short notice but there’s a lot happening right now and I need to bring you all up to speed before we move everything to the bunker. Alright?”
None of those gathered understood what the sales guy was on about but nonetheless he continued. “Um, in a nutshell, I’m running things now. You see, earlier today I received a package from myself in the future — it’s a whole story but basically I end up vibe-coding a solution for time travel that makes me rich — anyway, in this package were instructions for me to purchase this company outright and the funds to do it with. Like, a LOT of funds. The owners sold it to me without a second thought. As we speak, they’re already halfway to the Cayman Islands. Absolutely bonkers.
“And now, I am excited to declare a new chapter for our company: effective immediately, we are an AI business, which is totally exciting, guys, let me tell you, because AI is about to be everywhere, according to my future self. We’re talking building time machines with AI; we’re talking AI guiding parachuted cargo through interdimensional wormholes to low-altitude drops; we’re talking marketing time travel as a service. This kind of enterprise is supposed to be quite lucrative in the near future. So, yeah, is that great news or what, gang?”
Confused faces scanned about the room for some anchor to their understanding. Finally, a fourteen year veteran of the accounting department spoke up. “Terrence, this is a lot for us to have to process. But, AI? We don’t have expertise in that, or especially, um, time travel.” That last part elicited some chuckles.
Terrence grinned. “I agree with you. AI is not our bread and butter. Totally fair. But lucky for us, because of vibe coding, the AI will take care of itself! That frees us up to do what we’re already great at: delegating work to consultants and contractors. We’ll need their help to fulfill our electrical power needs. Fun fact: this product we’re about to support is incredibly power-hungry. It’s going to require as much electricity as we can get our hands on. Turns out it’s actually less efficient to build an energy-efficient time machine than it is to build an inefficient one and use paid mercenaries to seize power plants in poor nations.”
A rumble of discontent filled the room. Some had deduced the uncomfortable consequent of this announcement while others had already lost tolerance at the mention of time machines or the sight of tactical gear. Terrence raised his hands again. “Gang, let me explain. There is a perfectly valid reason for us to take power plants with force — if we don’t, then some other AI company will. Right now, there’s a guy in India vibe coding an AI to invent a death ray device that completely incinerates living beings. You make guns out of them or put them on drones — anyway, the electrical demand for these things is gargantuan but, honestly, their business plan is brilliant because their own product is used to expand their resources — that is, to invade small countries and commandeer their electrical grids.
“There will soon be others, like a company using AI to manufacture nuclear hand grenades within legal limits for ownership plus vending machines to dispense them, and there’s an AI hypnosis cannon company and, uh, another company whose AI hijacks karaoke machines to reprogram them for coordinated earthquake generation. But as you can guess, there’s only so much electrical output to go around. That means companies are going to get creative. Hence, the necessity for this.” He gestured to his bulletproof vest.
The head of HR stepped forward to ask cautiously if the military personnel in the room were to be their own company’s mercenaries. “You betcha,” answered Terrence. “With all this future-me wealth, there was more than enough to buy out this little unit from the nearby army base. But honestly, we’re going to need a lot more, because here’s the thing — once all these new AI companies spin up, there will be a lot of competition for armaments and soldiers. The worst is going to be some health insurance company whose whole operation is run by AI and it will enforce payment collection through threats of military and chemical weapon strikes.
“Which is why I want everyone to take a moment and appreciate how lucky we are. We’re getting an early seat in this new economy. I would hate to be stuck at one of those companies whose market gets killed off so they pivot to toxic waste disposal and, next thing you know, the entire staff glows in the dark. No, thank you. Not for us. Am I right?”
The room was in shock at this cascade of impossible news. Lucas was next to speak. “This is all very, um, hard to swallow, you know? Maybe it would help if you could show us some proof of what you’re claiming.”
“Of course, buddy.” Terrence approached Lucas’s cubicle. “You’re absolutely right. I’m making some wild claims, aren’t I? I owe you guys proof. Especially you, Lucas. After all, you’re being promoted to chief technical officer.”
“Wait. I am?”
“You betcha. We’re going to get rich together.” In Terrence’s hands was a rolled up magazine, the edges bent and ragged with time. Unfurling it, he held up the cover for Lucas to see: a future issue of Forbes depicting a slightly aged Terrence next to a slightly aged Lucas, attired in identical blue designer suits, faces puffed from botulinum injections, smiling beneath the headline “The World’s Richest Men!”
Concern and doubt melted from Lucas’s face, replaced by a glazed stare into the future of his wildest dreams.
“Alright, this is nuts,” interjected Katie. “Does anyone actually believe this? And if so, don’t you realize that what Terrence is proposing is plain awful and corrupt? Madmen like him have been leading lemmings off the cliff for millennia. If you–”
“Listen, I’m sorry Katie girl,” Terrence said gently, “but we’re almost out of runway here. You know all that cutting edge AI that I just mentioned? They’re all being launched today, like today today, so we can’t waste another second getting to the safety of our bunker, okey-doke?”
The accountant chimed in to ask, “What do you mean? What bunker?”
Huffing, Katie dropped into her chair and popped her earbuds back in as Terrence replied, “Great question. Love the curiosity. So, there’s a heavily fortified bunker at the army base. Very secure. That’s going to be home for a while, maybe permanently, unless of course you love running from the roaming death ray drones that will be pretty common by the end of the day, not to mention radioactive fallout.”
He instructed the room on an orderly evacuation to the armored transports that waited outside. However, Lucas called attention to another of the headlines on the Forbes’s cover: “Time Travel Virus: History’s Greatest Tragedy”.
“Oh, that?” Terrence waved the matter away with his hand. “I wouldn’t stress about it. It’s just some computer virus in the future. Well, technically, it’s a networked AI that operates like a virus. Actually, the whole thing was made to drive our company out of the time travel market. Very petty. Then, for some reason it immediately gets abandoned, leaving the AI to evolve without supervision. Eventually it starts building its own time machines, except — one little design flaw — cargo materialization happens at ground level which creates some…interposition problems. The thing is, though, their tech is cheap so a lot of companies still use it and the cost difference leaves more than enough to compensate surviving family members. Quite a big debate over it in the future, supposedly.”
There suddenly came a loud noise from Katie’s workstation as she banged her desk and leaped to her feet, ripping the earbuds from her ears. “Ha! I’m fighting fire with fire, Terrence! Just now, I vibe-coded my own AI network that is busy inventing its own kind of time machine, and as cheaply as possible, so that I can put you out of business!” She stepped out of the cubicle. “If it works, a package from the future will appear in front of me at any moment, containing way more wealth than you’ll ever have and I’ll use it to undo all of the damage caused by this stupid plague they call vibe coding!”
Katie stood in the aisle, already satisfied in expression, arms spread wide for effect as if summoning the expected package into being. The rest of the office watched her awaiting that dramatic moment, certain of her own coding experience to secure its transtemporal arrival.
One second she was there, and in the next, a large metal container occupied that exact spot, appearing from nowhere, with Katie’s name stenciled on the front. It stood tall and wide enough to envelope all of her with the exception of her hands, bisected at the wrists, splashing blood as they tumbled to the floor. From inside the box, a few thuds were heard, then nothing at all.
The others gasped and shrieked in fright but couldn’t avert their eyes from the horrible spectacle. Finally, Terrence spoke. “See?” He pointed to Katie’s severed appendages and the container. On its sides, red circles dribbled blood. “This is why vibe coding is too dangerous for just anyone to take up!”
Reminding them of the impending nuclear fallout, Terrence led the rest of the company from the building and to the military trucks that would drive them to their new bunker home and into an exciting future made possible by vibe coding.
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