this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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Did you type that sentence though? It looks like keyboard manipulation to me
Yes, because I directly typed on that keyboard. My fingers pressed each and every key to make each and every letter of this text you're reading.
The keyboard is a tool to interface with a computer, in the same way you need a hammer to push a nail, a screwdriver to drive a screw, or a knife cuts through things.
I didn't ask somebody else to go hammer the nail, screw the screw, or cut the thing then take credit for doing the thing I didn't do.
Managing a process isn't the same as doing the process, and in the same way, prompting an AI to make code for you isn't the same as actually making that code, and never will be.
Edit:
I should say I don't actually have anything against Vibe-coding itself, apart from the environmental implications of AI, and for personal projects I imagine it's probably quite useful.
What grinds my gears is when people say "they" coded something, knowing full well they didn't write a single line of code. It's like Vibe-artists saying they "drew" something DALI made.
Its fine to do it, but just admit that's what you did, rather than trying to take credit for a thing you didn't do.
In the same spirit of pointless gatekeeping.
You only pressed the buttons. That's hardly any of the work required for your text to show up on all of our computers.
You didn't translate the pulses from your key switches into USB signals, or write the kernel code which translated those inputs into scancodes, or write the browser code which displayed the form box that packaged your text into an HTTP POST request. None of your work went into the firmware on the routers which carried your data and you didn't do a bit of work burying the cables between those routers.
I haven't check but I'm pretty sure you're not a datacenter employee in Finland so you don't contribute to the labor required to manage the servers, you probably don't contribute to the Lemmy project or Mozilla/Chromium projects.
Your post is the result of a huge amount of tools that you had no hand in inventing or deploying. All you did was provide a few grams of force to some thermoplastic and sparked a few neurons.
Ah, but the keyboard manipulation is direct, at least.
All of your interaction with technology is mediated by other technology.
We all understand that when we say 'I went on the Internet' we're not picturing a person, with no technological assistance whatsoever, inducing current into a wire in encoded pulses according to IEEE 802.3 and scratching the resulting HTML in the dirt with a stick.
So, when someone comes along and says 'Well, actually, you didn't do anything because YOUR BROWSER went on the Internet.' it isn't actually describing a difference.
Here, the comment isn't making any argument on why this differentiation matters. It's just changing the framing to bait anti-AI engagement.
They likely also used other technology, like an IDE, syntax highlighting, auto completion, a linter, git, a programming language that they didn't invent themselves, libraries made by others... etc.
Implying 'if they use x tool' then they didn't build it is pointless gatekeeping that doesn't add anything to the discussion except create an on-ramp for more anti-ai bot content.
As I said in my reply directly to you, I don't have an issue with vibe-coding itself.
And I do understand that our interactions of the world are mediated by tools, but those tools are things we use to assist in our direct input.
... And even independent tools like autocompletion requires me to actually type the words I intend to use. I have a direct input on what the autocompletion does.
Prompting an AI to do something isn't actually doing the thing, it's managing another entity that does the thing for you. It's a tool, but it's a tool that thinks entirely for itself.
So when vibe-coders say the "coded" something the AI produced, or vibe-artists say they "drew" something an AI generated, it grinds my gears - because its not the same, and will never be.
If you code enough, if you draw enough, you get better at it. If you prompt an AI enough, you don't get better at either of those things - you just get better at prompting the AI.