I disagree. I’ve had almost 20 years of professional programming experience. Spent a decade in FAANG, the rest in startups.

It is unarguable that I am able to program. Vibe coding has absolutely made programming more accessible to me too.

I have two kids and a full time job. Before LLMs I didn’t do side projects; work and parenting plus my other interests took > 100% of my energy.

Now I have many things I’ve worked on or built solely because LLMs lowered the barrier to entry, and I feel that I can fit the remaining human work into the cracks of the time and energy I do have. One can gripe about how I’m less connected to the code, or that I learned fewer substantial technical lessons from the experience; these things are true.

However, I learned more than if I hadn’t done the project at all. It’s like the exercise benefit of an electric bike - you don’t get the aerobic benefit of an unassisted bike, but if it motivates you to ride when you otherwise wouldn’t then the trade off isn’t so clear.