Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope of “vibecoded Photoshop” question

  • Many read the question as a stress test of AI hype: if LLMs are as transformative as claimed, why no Photoshop/Excel/OS-class systems built mostly by prompting.
  • Others say this is a trap framing: expecting a 40‑year “cathedral” of software to be recreated quickly is unrealistic and mostly rhetorical.

What AI coding is actually doing today

  • Strong agreement that AI massively lowers the cost of “Level 1” work: boilerplate, syntax, small features, refactors, scripting, prototypes.
  • Several report building non-trivial apps or domain tools (trading bots, geospatial tools, personal databases, vector editors, etc.) much faster, sometimes with LLMs writing >90% of code.
  • Many note proliferation of tiny, bespoke internal tools (image utilities, CRUD apps, data pipelines) rather than big public products.

Why there’s no “vibecoded Photoshop” yet

  • Complexity: Photoshop‑class apps embody millions of lines, decades of UX tradeoffs, and thousands of cross-cutting invariants. LLMs struggle with global consistency across a large codebase.
  • Architecture and product decisions (“Levels 2 and 3”) remain the bottleneck; code generation doesn’t solve requirements, UX, integration, or long‑term maintenance.
  • Economic incentives: paying tokens and months of effort to clone a mature, cheap, entrenched tool with an ecosystem (Adobe CC, Office) is unattractive vs. buying or using existing competitors (GIMP, Photopea, Affinity, Canva, etc.).
  • Some argue AI has already partially obviated Photoshop for casual users by doing edits or synthesis directly via prompts.

Quality, testing, and technical debt

  • Multiple comments cite “downward pressure” on software quality: AI speeds up slop, increases unmaintainable code, and non‑engineers ship fragile tools that ops must support.
  • LLMs can help with tests and small verification, but are weak on complex end‑to‑end behavior and subtle bugs.

Jobs, creators, and ethics

  • No consensus on layoffs: some expect visible impact in a few years; others say current hiring patterns don’t match “AI will replace developers” rhetoric.
  • Artists and creatives express that AI undercuts their income and dignity; others reply that automation has long affected many professions and art is not uniquely special.

Reaction to the article

  • Several find the essay confusing or incoherent, unsure who the “accusers” are and what exactly is being argued.
  • Broad agreement on one core claim: AI coding is powerful but far from autonomously producing large, well‑architected, Photoshop‑scale systems.