I started a local vibecoders group because I think it has the potential to help my community.
(What is vibecoding? It’s a new word, coined last month. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding)
Why might it be part of a solarpunk future? I often see and am inspired by solarpunk art that depicts relationships and family happiness set inside a beautiful blend of natural and technological wonder. A mom working on her hydroponic garden as the kids play. Friends chatting as they look at a green cityscape.
All of these visions have what I would call a 3-way harmony–harmony between humankind and itself, between humankind and nature, and between nature and technology.
But how is this harmony achieved? Do the “non-techies” live inside a hellscape of technology that other people have created? No! At least, I sure don’t believe in that vision. We need to be in control of our technology, able to craft it, change it, adjust it to our circumstances. Like gardening, but with technology.
I think vibecoding is a whisper of a beginning in this direction.
Right now, the capital requirements to build software are extremely high–imagine what Meta paid to have Instagram developed, for instance. It’s probably in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s likely that only corporations can afford to build this type of software–local communities are priced out.
But imagine if everyone could (vibe)code, at least to some degree. What if you could build just the habit-tracking app you need, in under an hour? What if you didn’t need to be an Open Source software wizard to mold an existing app into the app you actually want?
Having AI help us build software drops the capital requirements of software development from millions of dollars to thousands, maybe even hundreds. It’s possible (for me, at least) to imagine a future of participative software development–where the digital rules of our lives are our own, fashioned individually and collectively. Not necessarily by tech wizards and esoteric capitalists, but by all of us.
Vibecoding isn’t quite there yet–we aren’t quite to the Star Trek computer just yet. I don’t want to oversell it and promise the moon. But I think we’re at the beginning of a shift, and I look forward to exploring it.
P.S. If you want to try vibecoding out, I recommend v0 among all the tools I’ve played with. It has the most accurate results with the least pain and frustration for now. Hopefully we’ll see lots of alternatives and especially open source options crop up soon.
You must log in or register to comment.
using insecure code that a glorified autocorrect has spat out hopefully isn’t going to be a part of the future I’ll be living in.
I might be misunderstanding, but it sounds like you’re angry at AI, or at least, you’d like it to diminish not grow in use.
That’s correct. It’s extremely unsustainable.
Yeah sorry no. Solarpunk is about community so if anything then pair programming is Solarpunk, but I don’t think that talking in isolation to an auto completion system is Solarpunk.
Maybe in like 300 years with some kind of robots, but that’s not really the scope of solarpunk, tbh.
Btw vibecoding is an horrifying name for the crisis you’ll get, when you try to fix code that your LLM spat out in production, when the customer demands it working.
(Recent example: https://cloudisland.nz/@daisy/114182826781681792 )
Yah, I think that using LLM’s while ignoring all of the externalities involved is … everything Solarpunk is in opposition to? There’s a rejection of the idea that this thing that looks bad now might pay off down the road because mumble mumble mumble progress.
Take a bicycle. A bicycle allows a person to transport themselves using overall less energy than walking. You can even work through the externalities and maybe make bamboo bikes and stuff and maybe try to carefully optimize the externalities better. But it looks pretty darn good at the start, gets better.
That’s not LLMs.
(warning: I hate “vibe” coding for a lot of reasons, and even more what it represents)
LLMs are the opposite of anything ecological IMHO.
What if you could build just the habit-tracking app you need
We have a thousand of those already. A better example is needed.
mold an existing app
That’s not how any of this works. One more reason to shun those who do not care and take the time to understand what programming is all about.
the capital requirements of software development from millions of dollars
Linux is free FFS, install Ubuntu today and you have all the languages you’ll ever need. How is
code vomitvibe coding helping? Also LLMs are very expensive to run right now, it’s the worst example.Last but not least, I hate how all the CEOs, managers, companies, and random people try to: pretend that open-source does not exist, change the meaning of the word open-source by associating it with binary blobs, and show developers as selfish people (“tech wizards”) who want to keep the technology for themselves.
You don’t want to learn how computer works and it’s fine, it’s your right, but don’t pretend it’s anyone’s fault.
You don’t want to learn how computer works and it’s fine, it’s your right, but don’t pretend it’s anyone’s fault.
One of the core tenants of solarpunk is accessibility. Not everyone is able to grasp how computers work, especially people who didn’t grow up with them. Our focus should be making the barriers to entry smaller, not bigger.
I think the pretty universal answer in all these comments is “no”- I think that’s fair but I’d add sone caveats.
There’s a lot of negative sentiments here around LLMs, which I agree with, but I think it’s easy to imagine some hypothetical future where LLMs existing without the current water/energy overuse, hallucinations or big companies stealing individuals work. Whether that future is likely or not, I think it’s possible.
The main reason vibe coding isn’t solarpunk is that, taken by itself, it’s not in any way related to ecological stewardship, anti-capitalist community building, or anything else that’s core to solarpunk. Vibe coding might or might not be part of some “cool techy future” in the same way as flying cars, robots, and floating cities but that’s not a reason to consider it as solarpunk.
If you’re into LLMs and solarpunk, instead of arguing that LLMs are solarpunk, you can make efforts to push them to being more solarpunk. How can LLMs support communities instead of coorporations? How can, through weights sharing and various optimisations, we make LLMs less damaging to the environment? Etc. That’d at least be a solarpunk way to go about LLMs, even if LLMs aren’t inherently solarpunk.
I agree with your assessment, but I’m more pessimistic about LLMs as a technology. The Luddites tell us that machines are not value-neutral - we should ask who the LLMs serve.
The core function of an LLM is to enclose public commons (aggregate, open-access human knowledge) in a centrally-controlled black box. It’s not a coincidence that corporations are trying to replace search with LLM summaries - the point is for the model to be an intermediary between the user and the information they need.
Vibecoding embraces this intermediation - to the vibecoder, an understanding of the technology they’re building is simply a cost that must be surmounted, and if they can avoid paying it, so much the better. This is misguided. Knowledge is power, and we cede that power at our peril. Solarpunk is punk, and punk is DIY, and DIY means taking back ownership of spaces and technologies.
I won’t say that it’s inherently wrong to cede that ownership - tactically. Perhaps the OP is building essential tools that their communities can’t access otherwise. But short term fixes a solarpunk future do not make.
No.
Energy and water costs for developmenr and usage alone are completely incompatible with that. Come back in 20 years when it’s not batshit insane ecologically.
Not to mention reducing power usage of programs isnt going to be very feasible based on simply an LLM’s output. LLMs are biased twoards common coding patterns and those are demonstrably inefficient (if the scourge of web apps based on electron is any tell). Thusly your code wouldn’t work well with lower grade hardware. Hard sell.
Theoritically they could be an efficient method of helping build software in the future. As it is now that’s a pipe dream.
More importantly, why is the crux of your focus on not understanding the code you’re making. It’s intrinsically contrived from the perspective of a solarpunk future where applications are designed to help people efficiently - without much power, heat, etc… weird man
I recently bought a frame.work mini-PC and plan to run my own models, solar-powered.
That’s a lot better than it could be. But I’m also talking about training costs. Models have to be updated to work swimmingly with new languages, conventions, libraries, etc. Models are not future-proof.
There are more efficient training methods being employed. See: the stuff R1 used. And existing models cam be retooled. But it’s still an intrinsic problem.
Perhaps most importantly it’s out of the reach of common consumer grade hardware to train a half decent LLM from scratch. It’s a tech that exists mostly in the scope of concentrated power among peoole who care little for their enviromental ramifications. Relying on this in the short term puts influence and power in the hands of people willing to burn our planet. Quite the hard sell, as you might imagine.
Also see: the other points I made
I’d argue that at least for at least the use of it that the energy costs and water usage are not significant if you self host. There’s a decent amount of self hostable, open source LLMs out there which can be used on repurposed old hardware.
I aint just talking about inference. Training costs are insane and models have to be updated to be used well with new languages, libraries, etc.
Tech here, married to a dev, friends with several devs.
LLM are shit coders. They are absolute ecological rapists and garbage vaporware for 90% of the uses people try to wedge them into.
The capital investment for software is not extremely high. It’s standard wages and learned skill. IG was bought, cherry picked and twisted to suit meta’s data thieving desires. There are literally millions of people producing and sharing code and software for free just for shits and giggles. GNU has been a very real thing for generations now.
Also: gatekept tech knowledge is not required for the harmony of which you speak. People aren’t being excluded from a solarpunk utopia because they can’t write an app. All that is required is a willingness to put in the work to do things in a way less damaging - and using the slop commonly misnamed AI is the antithesis of that
@canadaduane It’s just next big product of corporations. They want to sell computing power of their servers and you should consume it mindlesly.
If you want to advance humanity through free libre software, look at the FLOSS movement; that’s kinda their whole thing. Releasing a small piece of software on GitHub and providing some decent documentation on it is a nice thing to do.
Also, yeah, programming with an llm can speed things up, but you have to know enough to recognize when the llm is hampering you and you have to just roll up your sleeves and code the damn thing yourself. They’re improving, but they are still kinda stupid and they lie.
