I don't think that this should be downvoted because it raises a really important issue.
I hate AI code assistants, not because they suck, but because they work. The writing is on the wall.
If we aren't working on our own replacements, we'll be the ones replaced by somebody else's vibe code, and we have no labor unions that could plausibly fight back against this.
So become a Vibe Coder and keep working, or take the "prudent" approach you mention - and become unemployed.
Personally I used them for a while and then just stopped using them because actually no, unfortunately those assistants don't work. They appear to work at first glance but there's so much babysitting needed that it's just not worth it.
This "vibe coding" seems just another way to say that people spend more time refining the output of these tools over and over again that what they would normally code.
I'm in this camp... today.
But there's going to be an inflection point - soon - as things continue to improve. The industry is going to change rapidly.
Now is the time to either get ready for that - by being ahead of the curve, at least by being familiar with the tooling - or switch careers and cede your job to somebody who will play ball.
I don't like any of this, but I see it as inevitable.
How is it inevitable when they are running out of text to train on and running out of funding at the same time?
You just said they worked one comment ago and now you agree that they don't?
I'm in the same camp in that I don't use them because they don't work well enough for my own tastes. But I know what I'm doing, and I'm picky.
Clearly they do work in a general sense. People who don't want to code are making things that work this way right now!
This isn't yet replacing me, but I'm certain it will relatively soon be the standard for how software is developed.
Maybe there's going to be an inflection point ... or maybe not, I feel like we're at the exact same point as the first release of Cursor in 2023.
I’ll work on fixing the vibe coders mess and make bank. Experience will prove valuable even more than before