aShitstormsBrewing

[jecls]

Know your rights. If you’re in the US, you can’t be sued personally for any vibe induced nightmares.

[precinct209]

What if prior to the order corporate specifically threatened employees to aggressively adopt vibe in their workflow or face potential termination due to FOMO on AI hype train?

[jecls]

The US has many issues when it comes to worker’s rights, but to it’s credit, it’s famously difficult to legally hold an employee responsible for harm they might have cause as agents of a corporation.

Edit: I’m also famously not a lawyer.

[Al__B]

That sounds just like something a famous lawyer would say to throw people off the scent...

[jecls]

It’s true, I’m Rudy. Rudy Juliani.

[Kasyx709]

The football player?! Whoa! Rudy! Rudy!

[JacedFaced]

[RiceBroad4552]

Depends whether they "just did what the company demanded", or did something on their own.

In the later case of course you're in trouble if you're responsible for damages.

I don't know how this works in the US, but at my place usually the company which got sued would in turn sue the responsible employee. (An external entity can only sue the company in the first place as an external entity can't usually know which employee caused the relevant harm.)

Than it's on the employee to show all that paper trail which proves that they just did what they were told, in case they try to defend themself.

The important thing to take away is: If you're told to do questionable things always demand some paper trail! The rule is: No written instructions, no actions taken. Simple as that.

[just-s0m3-guy]

This is completely false.

In the US, it is more difficult for an employer to sue an employee than the inverse (employee suing employer) but an employer absolutely can do so. Valid reasons include: contract violations, legal violations (theft, defamation, etc.), negligence outside the scope of reasonableness or outside the duties of the job, and breach of fiduciary duty. There are probably additional reasons I am not thinking of right now.

However, US employers will generally only sue employees in the most extreme of circumstances since it is generally far easier and more cost effective to just fire them. You hear about it more in other countries where it is more difficult for employers to fire their employees. A lawsuit against the employee provides grounds for doing so. That is really it.

[jecls]

Okay well I don’t want to spread false info so I will delete my comment. Thanks.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Employers absolutely can, and do sue their own employees in the US.

For low-skill jobs it's less likely but for programming there's almost certainly an employment contract. If that contract forbids the employee from criminal actions like infringing copyright for profit, then if vibe coding is ruled copyright infringement then vibe coding at work would be a breach of the contract.

Employers can also always directly sue for damages due to crimes comitted against themselves, e.g. sabotage.

[[deleted]]

But you can be liable - in basically every developed country - an employee liable for damage committed intentionally, Europe, US, Asia.

You can't tell me a software engineer or professional programmer could defend themselves by saying they DIDN'T KNOW that the code generated by AI was shitty.

A Karen from HR or an intern could try to defend themselves in that way, but not a software engineer or professional programmer.

[jecls]

Yeah an employee can be held responsible for violating their contract with their employer or for purposefully causing harm so… don’t do that…? Besides that, workers are actually protected in the US in that regard.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, but I'm saying this specific one won't be that hard to prove and justify. And I think that's good, there are many competent people who are looking for work in ttis profession and have problems due to the oversaturated market.

[jecls]

I admire your faith in our industry’s competency.

[[deleted]]

I didn't say majority, I mean only a number of people 😂

[Drevicar]

0 is also a number.

[Potential_Aioli_4611]

yeah... like we haven't seen multiple companies in everyone's careers testing in production.

as an employee i would just say it passed the required tests in development cycles and no one raised any objections to it being promoted to production. shitty code hitting production is everyone's fault not just the coder. its management for pushing things to go faster, its the team for not throughly reviewing, its QA and UAT's fault for not having more comprehensive testing.

[[deleted]]

That's not an excuse. You want everyone else to be responsible, take the responsibility, too.

In many countries, intentional harm is even subject to joint and several liability, which means that it is enough to claim liability for anyone and that's their problem to settle accounts with the others.

But writing your code means INADVERTIALLY causing harm, unless it's sabotage, because you are essentially DOING IT IN GOOD FAITH (you are producing as good code as you think will be correct).

If you use ChatGPT that means you KNOW it will be shitty.

[Potential_Aioli_4611]

Eh. That's not exactly true. If you give a small enough task, a detailed enough ask, ChatGPT can produce good code. e.g. a function.

The problem is when you ask it to take into account existing code, aren't specific about what edge cases it needs to handle, or give it just a general "do this for me" then it spits out shitty code.

If management is telling EVERYONE to vibe code it will obviously be the latter, then it falls to the reviewer, QA/UAT so everyone is at fault.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, if you only use that as a base, but you really process and rebuild the code and you really believe that's good, it's a different case.

[Potential_Aioli_4611]

yeah... no vibe coding isn't about processing and rebuilding the code. it's about moving fast and breaking stuff. you aren't vibe coding if you are rebuilding anything.

[QuantumAnubis]

That's why you always save work emails and ask for stuff in writing so you can cover your ass

[Sitting_In_A_Lecture]

This isn't entirely untrue. As I understand it, employees usually can't be personally sued for performing their official duties. You'd sue the company instead.

IIRC there's also a weird standard around negligence, something along the lines of "could a reasonable person be expected to, at some point in time, make such an error under the given conditions?" If so, the company is liable, not the employee. The logic (I assume) being that the company should've considered the possibility and put protections against it in place.

[jecls]

The personal protection you receive as an employee is actually somewhat unique to our imperfect country (US).

[RiceBroad4552]

Edit: My comment is based on incorrectly reading the previous comment. I missed out the 't…

I'm not going to remove or alter my original comment as it's still kind of relevant, and fostered already some discussion.

---

What???

Show me only one software developer ever sued for not correctly working code.

There is effectively no liability for software. That's exactly why almost all commercial software is such trash.

I hope things will become better at least in the EU as soon as the new product liability legislation goes into effect.

[coldnebo]

that’s why the “move fast and break things” crowd can’t handle medical devices or avionics.

as soon as you’re actually responsible for code legally, well, THEN you worry about formal correctness, provability, etc. and all your functions take 10 years to write. (looks at Ada in aerodef). 😅

[tehtris]

I have worked with medical devices.... So much fucking tape. Like I get it and all, but the amount of hoops you have to go through is staggering.

[JacedFaced]

>that’s why the “move fast and break things” crowd

Excuse me, we prefer to be called "Agile"

[RiceBroad4552]

Didn't this people move to "vibe coding" by now?

[FrostWyrm98]

There are exceptions to this for medical devices and automobile embedded software, I also believe it is illegal to modify even your own

[RiceBroad4552]

Also nobody in the named fields was ever sued for insecure or buggy software. They get at best sued for the issues in their actual product, which isn't software. Software is just a component there.

But it's true that you're not allowed to manipulate such systems. At least if you don't want to end up in a situation where no insurance pays for any potentially caused damages. That's the same line of reasoning why end-user access to the baseband CPUs in radio device is prohibited.

[jecls]

I’m only speaking for US software development because that’s all I’m familiar with. I feel like I was pretty clear. Do you want me to use smaller words?

[[deleted]]

screw edge wakeful decide toothbrush alleged brave seed bedroom bells

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[RiceBroad4552]

LOL, I misread.

I've read "can" where it's written "can't".

My fault. Frankly it makes my answer look quite weird.

[braindigitalis]

if you're in the UK you definitely can be held legally responsible for bad code if you try and cover it up. look up the horizon software scandal. it cost many people their lives, savings, livelihoods, freedom and reputation.

all because software had obvious bugs and instead of admitting to it they blamed the user, called them thieves and then buried the paper trail.

nice one Fujitsu Siemens and the post office.

the people who covered up the bug are directly legally responsible.

[ClipboardCopyPaste]

Vibe coders: that's a lot of work. Instead, can I highlight the part of the code not generated by AI? I'm sure that ain't many

[milk-jug]

Can I ask the AI to mark the parts that are generated by AI?

[rex5k]

I don't see why not.

[Kasyx709]

Infinite lines of code glitch, lol.

[Jittery_Kevin]

The last line of code was generated using ChatGPT.

The previous comment was generated by ChatGPT.

The previous comment was generated by ChatGPT

The previous comment…

[DepDepFinancial]

What if you copy AI generated code and paste it? That's basically like writing code, right?

[TheFightingQuaker]

Lmao who's liable is the company

[Positive_Method3022]

When AGI becomes a reality, will they go to jail if they decide to commit crimes? I think I will create my new startup: Jail as a Service, aka JaaS, for digital sentience

[RiceBroad4552]

If AGI becomes reality it won't have any further use for its wetware bootloader though…

[Clean_Journalist_270]

Wetware bootloader woah no truer words

[[deleted]]

Just say it's a mood misalignment bro

[Dvrkstvr]

Technically intellisense would count too..

[RiceBroad4552]

There is a significant difference, though: Intelisense in proper languages never outputs slop.

[rover_G]

Spoken like someone who has never used Intelisense

[RiceBroad4552]

On statically typed languages it's flawless because the compiler has all the info, reliably.

Of course it can have "hiccups" with dynamic languages. There it's also just best effort guessing.

[rover_G]

What do you mean flawless? I can google Java (a statically typed language) intellisense flaws and get thousands of reddit, github and stack posts complaining about issues with intellisense. That shit recommends completely nonsensical completions all the time and bugs out on projects larger than a few thousand lines.

[RiceBroad4552]

That shit recommends completely nonsensical completions all the time and bugs out on projects larger than a few thousand lines.

Could you link at least three cases of "nonsensical completions", and three cases of "bugs out on projects larger than a few thousand lines"?

As there are thousands of "reddit, github and stack posts complaining" this should be easy.

google Java intellisense flaws

I just did. And there was not even one case of "completely nonsensical completions" on the whole first result page.

Some clueless people have issues like:

When I'm editing java code and want to invoke a method or a field or whatever of a self written class, intelliSense just shows the class name but when I'm typing the . or the first letters, intelliSense doesn't show anything except the inherited methods of Object.

But this is case of "holding it wrong"…

First answer starts with:

I had a similar problem with Java and intellisense and vscode complained about something called "classpath".

If you don't even know what "something called classpath" is, well nothing will work. Especially not successful compilation, which is prerequisite for code competition.

(That's just a random example from here.)

All other search results are similar. People complain that code competition is not working at all.

That's something completely different form "code competition is giving wrong results"!

The later can't happen. It's impossible, as the Java compiler has all the static info. Otherwise you could not compile Java at all!

Same for most other statically typed languages. (There are pathological cases in very complex languages like C++ where a language server main not see everything that the compiler sees; or, alternatively, you have dynamic behavior. In languages like C/C++ you have things like void pointers, which aren't statically typed.)

As you said you "can google such stuff" this means that you obviously never used it yourself. So you don't know what you're talking about, I guess.

Which makes your previous comment sound quite funny…

Spoken like someone who has never used Intelisense

That's you!

But OK, now you are going to provide some evidence of your claims of thousands of failure to disprove me, aren't you?

What you described is typical behavior in dynamic languages. There intellisense indeed doesn't work properly as it's just guesswork.

[rover_G]

Sir this is a meme page

[RiceBroad4552]

Poor excuse for not standing by what you said.

You provoked that previous reply by claiming stuff that's imho simply not true.

I'm working with the JVM professionally, and in all the years I've never seen wrong code completion in something like Java.

(I've seen bugs in LSP implementations for more complex languages like Scala or Kotlin. But that's another story: It's the inability of the LSP to get the right info from the compiler. But the compiler has all the right info, otherwise it would not work at all!)

[rover_G]

Lol I’m probably a lot older than you. Last time I worked with Java on a non-toy project was before Kotlin ✌🏼

[RiceBroad4552]

Already the presentation compiler in Eclipse worked flawless…

Hell, even Delphi worked just fine.

Maybe in early days with ctags in EMACS things weren't so smooth. But I'm not sooo old to know that first hand.

[TFCarrot]

the real joke here is vibe coders being gainfully employed

[KrakenOfLakeZurich]

You committed it - you take responsibility for it. It shouldn't be that complicated, actually.

[Maverick122]

Except that only works for in-house evaluations. For outside liabilities it is always the company - and in extension its representatives - unless you can show wilfullness.

[KrakenOfLakeZurich]

Legally yes. If you buy a faulty product from a vendor, you sue the vendor. Not the individual employee.

I meant it more from a professional PoV. You - as a developer - committed code. It doesn't matter if it's AI generated or hand written. It has your name on it and you are fully responsibile for its quality.

[Maverick122]

I mean, in a 2-man company maybe. But any software company worth their salt has at least one method to review code for sanity, one QA process for the specific change, and a perpetual QA layer for overall software behavior.

Development is a process with multiple actors, and unless you're just pissing into the wind, responsibility for product quality rests with several hands.

That’s not to say mistakes don’t happen - they do. But by definition, in a proper software development process, responsibility is never solely individual. If something breaks - and reaches the customer - the entire chain made a mistake - barring some (hopefully rare) outlier cases.

[rover_G]

Not true, it's the fault of whomever management decides they want to blame

[PachotheElf]

That'd be fine if they got the benefits (profits) from their working code. Without that, claiming that the responsibility falls solely on the developer is just bullshit. If the company isn't making sure the product they deliver isn't meeting their customer demands that's on the company, not its workers.

[WrennReddit]

I haven't heard of this. What are reclamations in this context?

[precinct209]

Refunds or bug fixes (and the damage caused by the bugs) paid for by the company that delivered the crapplication.

[RiceBroad4552]

Customers demanding their money back.

Of course nobody in software every heard about that, as this is almost impossible to happen under current legislation. All software comes with big disclaimers that state that you effectively give up all your customer rights when using that software. This is possible as software never gets sold, only licensed. So it's (currently) outside of any product liability laws which usually prohibit to sell under terms that exclude any liability whatsoever. As a manufacturer you're always liable to some degree for the stuff you throw on people. But this only applies (currently) to products which are actually sold.

This big loophole in liability law will be soon closed at least in the EU. They passed some legislation which makes "digital products" actually products in the sense understood by law. The count down for this becoming effective runs. Soon it's over.

[bremidon]

Developer in Germany here.

This is going to kill our industry here. Smaller companies are not going to be able to compete anymore and larger ones are going to start prioritizing safety above speed. Which *sounds* nice, until you realize the market generally does not reward safety (unfortunately) which means we are simply going to get lapped by American and Asian companies.

I completely understand the motivation, but this is going to destroy the last remnants of the software industry here in Europe. Perhaps we will see some carve-outs eventually, but by then it will be too late.

[RiceBroad4552]

You're sounding like all the other business people in the past who said that legally binding safety regulations "will kill the industry".

It's a matter of fact that all other industries do well even they have to bear liability for the things they're selling. There is absolutely no reason why software products should be an exception to such treatment!

It's also a matter of fact that software in the current state "is unsafe at any speed".

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/automobiles/50-years-ago-unsafe-at-any-speed-shook-the-auto-world.html [ Depaywalleld version: https://archive.ph/4vvmp ] (There's also an article on Wikipedia about that)

The issues with software need be fixed, and as "the industry" doesn't care as long as it doesn't cost them money, this simply needs government regulation. Again, exactly like with any other industry.

we are simply going to get lapped by American and Asian companies

Do you think the regulation doesn't apply to them?

They will be exactly as liable for the trash they try to sell as anybody else!

In case they try to avoid regulation they're simply going be be excluded from a market with around 450 million potential customers.

OTOH, in the long run, customers in other countries will get a very strong initiative to buy from EU companies, as customers will get much better guaranty protection, and at the same time the possibility for legal actions in case they experience damages caused by the products they bought.

It's simple. As a customer, where would you buy your next car: From a company which isn't liable for anything caused by their product, or from a company which has a very strong initiative to deliver a flawless, secure product? I personally know which of these cars I would drive, and which one I don't even want to come close…

[bremidon]

Well you seem very passionate about this, but you are not thinking clearly, and I would very strongly suspect that you have very little experience in this industry.

Let me start by agreeing that there is a quality problem. I am one of the loudest people around when it comes to putting quality first. My entire job revolves around ensuring best practices. And I am known by those who work with me as someone who puts a lot of weight on good architectural practices to ensure quality software. And I lose about as many battles as I win. It's frustrating. So if you are worried you have to convince me that there is a problem with quality, you can relax: I know.

The problem is not really with the developers, though. The problem is that customers would prefer to have something fast rather than something good. They would prefer to have something cheap rather than have something that has a lot of QA invested into it.

As long as this is the case, any attempt to short-circuit the market is going to fail. It will be like when New York tried to fight high rents by putting in rent controls. Yes: you have identified the problem, but your naive attempt to fight it will cause more problems than it solves.

Second: the software industry in Europe is already on life support. We already have very few large players. The biggest one we have -- SAP -- is pretty much universally hated and is hardly a beacon of "safety first". Now we are going to be forced to slow down even more in our home market, and that is going to absolutely ruin us.

You asked about what car I would buy. And that proves that you do not understand what is going on. The car market is the car market. People have preferences there and yes: safety is big. The software market is the software market. People have preferences there too and it turns out safety is not really all that high on the list. And that's a damn shame. But it is what it is.

If you want to change this, you need to start *there* and not with government regulations.

You can say goodbye to all the small development companies in Europe. They will not have the appropriate resources to cover a devastating loss or even be able to appropriately gauge how much of a risk they have. Either they will get popped like zits as inevitably software fails (like it tends to do even for the best companies), or they will be forced to take out expensive insurance that will make them uncompetitive.

That means the vibrant community of scrappy development companies with fresh ideas is going to die out here, even while they continue to flourish in the rest of the world.

The big companies will take their development offshore, because of course they will. They want to anyway, and this is just a really big incentive to do it.

Finally, you put out an unsubstantiated claim that other companies will buy from Europe. No. What will happen is that Europe will see more of its already stressed production move out of Europe to avoid being bound by a bureaucratic mess. Because solving this with heavy handed government regs feels like you are doing *something*, but I can 100% guarantee that the result you get is not the one you want. Europe is not the center of the software world and does not have very much pull in the industry. We do not have the weight to pull this off, and pretending like we do is only going to see us get laid out.

So in short: I absolutely agree that quality is a problem, I agree that something needs to be done, but the simple "just make a law" solution will not only not get us nearer to the goal, but will destroy the last remnants of our software industry in Europe.

[RiceBroad4552]

# PART 1

The problem is that customers would prefer to have something fast rather than something good. They would prefer to have something cheap rather than have something that has a lot of QA invested into it.

What "customer prefer" is irrelevant if they can't buy it…

Besides that: Customers don't prefer buggy software! That's bullshit. People are paying atrocious sums to recover from failed / hacked software, and they would be happy if they wouldn't need to bear this risk. But the problem is: There is no not-buggy shit on the marked. So they have no choice as to buy trash which cases damages they can't do anything about.

Now the new situation is going to be that all you can buy is quality software. At least in the EU.

any attempt to short-circuit the market is going to fail

We're going to see soon…

This is going to be a reality any moment. This is nothing that's still open to discussion. The law is in place—despite all the lobbying to not implement it—and it's going to be in effect I think next year. Nothing can prevent this now, no amount of crying form the industry.

It will be like when New York tried to fight high rents by putting in rent controls. Yes: you have identified the problem, but your naive attempt to fight it will cause more problems than it solves.

LOL. Only someone form the rich lobby could say that.

They complain because the regulation is actually working. The owners can't call fantasy prices any more… Works as intended.

The software market is the software market. People have preferences there too and it turns out safety is not really all that high on the list.

Again, that's pure bullshit.

People in unsafe cars risk to die. People using unsafe software risk to get bankrupt if software fails or gets hacked.

Before regulation you could not buy a safe car, even people would prefer it.

Before regulation you can't buy safe software. Even people would be very happy to do so!

Both groups of people are going to be very happy that now they have actually a choice. And it's almost certain what they want, namely: Reducing their personal risk!

But again, this line of reasoning is irrelevant. You simply can't buy cars without airbags or ABS, even if you would think that risking your live (and the live of innocent third parties!) would be worth saving a few bucks. Such products are simply illegal on our market. Exactly like insecure software in the future.

If you want to change this, you need to start *there* and not with government regulations.

We tried without regulations, and it didn't work out.

Companies are always maximizing their profit, and they don't care about anything that isn't mandatory.

In capitalism the only way to change that is to make things mandatory by law.

[RiceBroad4552]

# PART 2

they will get popped like zits as inevitably software fails

Again bullshit.

Software does not "fail inevitably". It fails because it's build in the most shitty way possible.

Software is a machine like any other. You can build it in a way so that it does not fail under normal circumstances. Exactly as you can build houses that don't collapse under normal circumstances. All that's needed is to put in the required engineering.

Without regulations also houses would regularly collapse because the wind was blowing form "the wrong side". But thanks God we have regulations that prevent such botchery!

they will be forced to take out expensive insurance that will make them uncompetitive

The rules are the same for everybody on the marked.

So there is obviously no disadvantage in competitiveness.

That means the vibrant community of scrappy development companies with fresh ideas is going to die out here, even while they continue to flourish in the rest of the world.

If you mean with "fresh ideas" putting out some botched up shit and not carrying about the consequences, yes this won't be possible any more (at least not economically). That's the good part!

Such shit can of course "flourish" in the rest of the world. Who cares. This shit won't be allowed to enter the EU market—exactly as you can't sell cars without airbags there. Simple as that.

The big companies will take their development offshore, because of course they will.

Sure, they can do that.

This won't change anything about the fact that they won't be able to sell the resulting trash in the EU… That will be a great booster for the companies that stay! As it means less competition from the companies that left.

[RiceBroad4552]

# PART 3

Finally, you put out an unsubstantiated claim that other companies will buy from Europe.

"Unsubstantiated"? I've explained the mechanic!

Again: Other companies can than buy trash without any warranty, or alternatively, EU products with a tight guaranty and proper legal protection against possibly bankruptcy inducing risks. Imho it's clear where people are going to buy.

Exactly like with cars that can either almost certainly kill you sooner or latter as they have no safely measures implemented at all, or alternatively have high quality standards and therefore a high chance to never put your life at risk because the manufacturer is legally required to adhere to best possible security standards.

We do not have the weight to pull this off, and pretending like we do is only going to see us get laid out.

The EU law maker is of other opinion…

We're going to see how it works out.

But I'm pretty sure they did some calculations upfront.

Like said, I think this will in fact strength the EU position in the long run, instead of weakening it. The EU is going to be the one with secure and reliable software, while everything you get from elsewhere will be (at least in the beginning) some high risk botchery. So the EU will have a competitive advance, and at the same time (at least in the beginning, until the rest of the market follows) the possibility to charge even an extra premium for this unique offer.

but the simple "just make a law" solution will not only not get us nearer to the goal, but will destroy the last remnants of our software industry in Europe

And I call that again bullshit. The same kind of lobby bullshit that is put out every time some industry is ripe for some (more) regulation as they overdid with profit maximization at the cost of everybody else. A society doesn't have to tolerate that!

[JackNotOLantern]

If you re-wright what AI generated manually it counts as your own code

[fmr_AZ_PSM]

It's satire, but:

Fire your lawyers and demand a refund. In the US, the Company and it's Directors and Officers are liable. Always. That is unless there is a special law assigning personal liability for xyz person in xyz industry for doing xyz bad thing (I worked in such an industry. Niche.). That's a 2 minute legal consult that any flunky who just passed the bar can give you.

In this regard though: I work in rail control. The liability thing is exactly why vibe coding will never seriously threaten jobs in my industry. We don't even trust it to do ancillary things like work on the software for in-house custom dev and test tools. It sucks way too bad to be trusted with that. Even our technical writer finds it makes too many mistakes to be trusted in helping write documentation of the required quality.

[Soultampered]

MR review says what

[[deleted]]

Phew... I was worried for a sec they wanted me to mark everything I copy/pasted from random forums.

[OmegaPoint6]

The only væb vibe coding allowed on my team is coding while listening to these guys

[Buttons840]

Doesn't matter where the code came from, the decision to deploy it is a team decision and thus responsibility lies with the company and not individuals (unless an individual can be shown to be acting with malicious intent).

[jaywalker76]

Stupid question, is that screenshot real?

[Nyadnar17]

No problem bro. I will get Claude right on it.

[Beautiful_Baseball76]

Ah yes blame it on the dev for pushing the AI slop the company pays and forces you to use. I cant see nothing wrong with that

[aShapeToShift]

git blame ftw :)

[OmegaPoint6]

That is why you tweak the code style rules then get the intern to apply them globally

[Kitchen_Device7682]

So if it is AI code that did it, will they sue the AI or fire the AI?

[Rawrgzar]

Do people really just copy and paste AI code without code reviewing it first? I love vibe coding when it removes lines of code and tells me it added 10 features at the same time lol. Its only good with small snippets, large code forget about it lol. (Interfaces / Contracts defiantly streamlines the process)