Can tech journalists actually code?

Can Tech Journalists Actually Code?

All the mysteries of the known universe might be embedded in the so-called embedding space of artificial intelligence. Or something. Don’t ask me, or really anyone, even the computer scientists, to define it. Every attempt I’ve made to assign a story on the subject ends in defeat. Too abstract. Too technical. Too pointless. So until such time as I’m able to pull this off, we’ll have to settle for a more analog style of embedding, the kind a journalist does, in foreign territory.

Though “settle” might be the wrong word here, and “analog” too, since we’re talking about the great Lauren Goode embedding, as a decidedly non-analog programmer, at Notion. The piece she gets out of it, “Why Did a $10 Billion Startup Let Me Vibe-Code for Them—and Why Did I Love It?,” now ranks among my favorites of the AI era.

If you don’t know what vibe coding is, or Notion, I’ll let Lauren introduce you—she just does it so well. Suffice it to say, you should know, since these things are pretty much redefining how a whole industry, and potentially the entirety of the future, gets made. So don’t mistake Lauren’s cutesy tone for unseriousness. This is a piece about AI that’s not doomy or self-serious, but it does have Big Ideas on its mind. Perhaps not the mysteries of the universe, but close enough.

 READ THE BIG STORY ➔ 

P.S. But wait, there’s more. Lauren’s wasn’t the only Big Story about AI we published this week. Remember Stable Diffusion, one of the first great AI image generators? Well, the startup behind it collapsed, and then it uncollapsed, and now James Cameron, of all people, is involved. One of our senior staffers, Zoë Schiffer (Lauren’s boss, incidentally), goes inside.

Computers Run Computers Run Computers

Nine years ago, at a time when machine learning and neural nets were showing promise, but before Google’s transformer paper sparked the AI revolution, WIRED ran a cover story that foretold the conditions of Lauren’s experiment at Notion. Its title: The End of Code. In it, writer Jason Tanz sketched out a near future—the one we are living out right now—in which computers run themselves, with only the gentle prodding of humans to guide them.

Read now, alongside Lauren’s account of her foray into vibe coding, Tanz’s philosophical prognostications offer a gratifying, yet chilling, perspective on a world in which humans are no longer writing the rules. Tanz writes of elusive and ungovernable ghosts in our machines, sees the neural network as a black box, and describes machine learning as a jungle of our own making. And yet his conclusion, which I won’t spoil here, provided a desperately needed antidote to the intense unease, if not pure terror, that has pervaded my waking hours ever since I first opened Chatgpt.com. I believe I will be thinking about it for a long time. 

One thing is certain: Our relationship to computers will never be the same. In nine more years, what do you think coding, or whatever we might call human communication with machines by then, will look like? Comment below the article or send an email to samantha_spengler@wired.com. 

Last week’s Classic, The Great American Microchip Mobilization, tracked Intel’s attempt to regain its position as a global semiconductor powerhouse. Meanwhile, the stakes could not be higher. I asked you whether you believe Intel will pull through and make good on its ambitious promises. One reader named Dave, who said he was a former Intel consultant, fears the worst: “In many ways, it reminds me of Sun Microsystems or IBM.  The central issue is that they used to be Number One and developed certain attitudes and beliefs which are now holding them back … I am not optimistic.”

Tell us about your favorite WIRED stories and magazine-related memories. Write to samantha_spengler@wired.com, and include “CLASSICS” in the subject line.