Paper: 'Vibe coding' is harming open source by cutting human attention

A newly published paper titled 'Vibe coding kills open source' argues that using AI tools to write code — so-called "vibe coding" — is damaging open source software developers by reducing the human attention that sustains many projects, say its authors from several universities and institutes.

"Vibe coding raises productivity by lowering the cost of using and building on existing code, but it also weakens the user engagement through which many maintainers earn returns," says the paper. Co-author Miklós Koren told The Register the shift has hidden costs for OSS developers, potentially lowering community recognition, reputation and job prospects.

"High-quality projects can still thrive," said Koren. "We don't think that large OSS projects will disappear overnight. But it will be harder to get beyond the 'cold start problem' and get an otherwise promising project off the ground." The paper warns maintainers of marginal projects may lose motivation and stop contributing — "the proverbial 'random person in Nebraska' may give up." It points to real-world effects such as Tailwind Labs blaming AI for the laying off of three employees; its CEO said, "Traffic to our docs is down about 40 percent from early 2023, despite Tailwind being more popular than ever." "The docs are the only way people find out about our commercial products, and without customers we can't afford to maintain the framework," the CEO added.

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