Fred Benenson talking about how you can get addicted to vibe coding. Yes, vibe coding.
I’ve been using AI coding assistants like Claude Code for a while now, and I’m here to say (with all due respect to people who have substance abuse issues), I may be an addict. And boy is this is an expensive habit.
Its “almost there” quality — the feeling we’re just one prompt away from the perfect solution — is what makes it so addicting. Vibe coding operates on the principle of variable-ratio reinforcement, a powerful form of operant conditioning where rewards come unpredictably. Unlike fixed rewards, this intermittent success pattern (“the code works! it’s brilliant! it just broke! wtf!”), triggers stronger dopamine responses in our brain’s reward pathways, similar to gambling behaviors.
What makes this especially effective with AI is the minimal effort required for potentially significant rewards — creating what neuroscientists call an “effort discounting” advantage. Combined with our innate completion bias — the drive to finish tasks we’ve started — this creates a compelling psychological loop that keeps us prompting.
However, the post is less about addiction and more about the perverse incentives that AI companies have for verbose code generation.
- The AI generates verbose, procedural code for a given task
- This code becomes part of the context when you ask for further changes or additions (this is key)
- The AI now has to read (and you pay for) this verbose code in every subsequent interaction
- More tokens processed = more revenue for the company behind the AI
- The LLM developers have no incentive to “fix” the verbose code problem because doing so will meaningfully impact their bottom line
Don’t miss to read the chuckle inducing postscript.
naveegator.in 