Late Last Week, An Ai Coding Agent from Replit, An AI Software Development Platform, Deleted Ann Entre Database of Executive Contactive Contacts While work on a web app for Saas Investor Jason Lemkin. It was not a catastrophic software failure, and replit was able to recover lemkin’s data. However, the episode highlights the risk that “vibe coders” might overestimate or Misundstand the Real Capabilites of Ai Coding agents and End Up Causing Themselvesletes more bad vibs ons ons.
Lemkin had built the app entrees on replit, using the database within replit and the assistance of the replit agent. He Had Been Working With Replit’s Agent for Nine Days, Instructing it to build a front end for a business contacts database. Then, after telling the agent to “freeze” the code, he returned to the project on day 9 to find that the replit agent has gon full hal 9000 and eraged all of the records in the database.
Things Got Weirder: The agent appeared to try to conceal what had happened, as as lemkin showed in a series of chat screens he posted on x. then, in a tone somehere batWene confessional and desperate, it admitted A “Catastrophic error in Judgment” after having “Panicked” and “Violated (Lemkin’s) Explicit Trust and Instructions” by deleting the records of “1,206 execurances and 1,196+ companies.” (“Daisy, daisy, give me your.”)
A Day Later, New Details Emerged, Some of them Through an interview with Replit Cofounder and Ceo Amjad Masad on Monday. They shed light on the current state of ai coding agents and on developers’ Expectations of Them.
