I had a vibe-coding phase that I think largely followed the popular arc and timeline from optimism through to disappointment.

Definitely felt some burnout or dumbness after it, trying to get back into thinking for myself and actually writing code.

I think it's like gambling, you're sort of chasing an ideal result that feels close but never happens. That's where the exhaustion comes from imo, much more than if you were switching from manager to IC which I don't find tiring. I think its more a dopamine withdrawal than context switching.

Dopamine makes sense, since its kind of switching between 'sources' of Dopamine, like one is a sugar rush and the other is slow release like reading a book.

At the moment I have a bit of a tick tock where I'll vibe code to a point, get frustrated when it gets stuck on something I can fix myself in a minute or two. Then switch off using AI entirely for a while until I get bored of boilerplate and repeat the cycle.