Starting to see a lot of these complaints. To be honest, I feel burnt out myself. I’ve noticed its more intense when you finish something big and maybe aren’t sure what your next project should be. I also think a feeling of underappreciation is involved as much as anything else. But that isn’t an AI issue, per se. It’s just life. Still, this goes back to why I say the term vibe coding is stupid. It implies this work is easier. It’s not easier. You just get things done faster, which in some ways means it’s harder because there is always more work that can be done.
The only thing that feels the burnout is my wallet. I have enough ideas for years to come, if only I had the budget.
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I use antigravity’s $200 a month plan which is essentially unlimited. I’ve only run into short rate limits twice since it started. I supplement it with Cursor’s Pro plan since AG doesn’t support MCP prompts and I make MCP servers. So, I don’t really face the budget issue anymore. Of course, the sale on AG is going to end and the price will go up probably.
Interesting point.
I am thinking maybe people need to grow to handle their new position which is becoming more like some project manager and less of a developer. Trying to be a project manager over your own projects that are moving fast without the necessary project management skills will cause burnout I think.
Also since AI is so fast, I think people spend less time planning and deciding if something is even worth doing. Thus people may actually be producing more output than is necessary for the project. More work = burnout.
You could also take breaks with all the extra money you are earning (since you are finishing projects so fast), and/or hire someone to do portions of your current job so you can do less / focus on non burnout things.
AI being so fast causes us to multitask a lot more than normal, and this is just taxing on our brains as developers.
At some point, we will be too inefficient and just be entirely taken out of the development process.
Sure, breaks work. It’s not just the project management, though I think that aspect is more important than ever. The entire development cycle is compressed. Planning, coding, testing, debugging, documenting, deploying, etc., all happens much faster now and, if you are relying on AI, require the human in the loop to manage and double check everything.
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Agree with this Chris. The machines we now have can do stuff faster than we human’s have evolved to handle. It’s going to be hard.
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The high cognitive load of keeping track of so many mental threads is probably good for the brain though. And, it’s all probably temporary. Humans in the loop will inevitably become ever less necessary.
i used to have natural stopping points during a project because certain tasks just took a while. now those gaps are gone and it turns into this nonstop loop of “ok whats next.” i’ve started forcing myself to take breaks between features even when the momentum is there because otherwise i look up and its been 6 hours and i havent moved.
the “vibe coding” framing is annoying too. like yeah the typing is faster but the decision making is the same. you still have to think through architecture, catch edge cases, review what the model did. thats the tiring part, not the typing.
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