AI is Coming for the Unmotivated

Vibe Coding, Cognitive Offloading, and AI's Gift to the Driven

In February, a post on X went viral that introduced a new term to the world: vibe coding. Coders chimed in from across the globe, sharing stories of outsourcing the vast majority of their code to Artificial Intelligence, barely touching the keyboard themselves.

The idea moved from internet buzz to industry headline when an article highlighted that a quarter of startups within Y Combinator – arguably the world's most prestigious incubator – were using AI to write as much as 95% of their code. Suddenly, social media newsfeeds flooded with Reels, TikToks, and Tweets on the rise of "vibe coding" and the dawn of working on vibes.

And they aren't wrong. AI will undoubtedly allow us to "vibe" more during certain stretches of cognitive work, automating tedious execution and freeing up mental space. But the conclusion many seem to be drawing – that all you need is a reasonably good idea and then AI lets you simply vibe your way to success, using Y Combinator as Exhibit A – is dangerously misleading.

Y Combinator isn’t your average incubator with run-of-the-mill entrepreneurs. It’s harder to get into than Harvard. Getting accepted isn't a matter of strolling in with a napkin sketch. To even be seriously considered, founders have typically already invested immense intellectual and emotional energy. They've wrestled with complex problems, conducted deep market research, refined their concepts through countless iterations, and built a strategic foundation. The ideas that make it through YC's gates are among the most vetted, stress-tested, and potentially world-changing concepts presented each year. When these founders leverage AI to write 95% of their code, they aren't outsourcing the truly difficult part. The intense intellectual heavy lifting – the critical thinking, the market validation, the strategic differentiation, the core 'why' behind their venture – has already been done, often painstakingly, by them. They aren't just casually vibing; they are directing a hyper-efficient supercomputer based on their own prior, intense mental labor.

This distinction is crucial because it highlights the truth about AI's emerging impact. AI could disproportionately reward those who bring significant motivation, sharp critical thinking skills, the patience and skill to iterate, and a solid foundation of domain knowledge to the table. And those who treat AI as a magic wand waved over passive ambition will easily be outcompeted, even by AIs themselves. The gap between the motivated and the unmotivated widens. The average and the overachievers. This will be true across all sectors of knowledge work.

AI may widen the gap

A study of Kenyan entrepreneurs reinforced this idea. When given access to AI tools, the high-performing entrepreneurs thrived. Possessing strong fundamentals and critical thinking skills, they knew the right questions to ask of the AI, how to critically evaluate its output, and how to integrate the useful advice. The lower-performing entrepreneurs, however, were actually harmed by the AI access. They tended to just outsource the hardest problems they faced to the AI and lacked the critical judgment or foundational knowledge to properly vet or implement the AI's suggestions. This attempt to bypass essential cognitive work backfired.

AI places the onus of critical evaluation squarely back on the user.

“Make me a TikTok Clone”

The more capable AI becomes, the more the gap between the motivated and unmotivated will widen. Consider the future painted by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He described the coming era of "thought-to-product," using a viral example: soon you will be able to tell an AI to "Make me a copy of TikTok, and if it's not viral in [X] hours, refine it." I believe he is right; AI will be that capable, perhaps even in the next 18-24 months. However, those who focused solely on how the app could be executed using vibes are missing how competitive the landscape is about to become. When anyone can instantly generate a sophisticated app like TikTok using AI, the barrier to entry collapses, but the challenge of success skyrockets. How does your app stand out? Why, in a sea of eleven technically masterful TikTok clones, would users choose yours? Success no longer hinges on the sophistication of the code, but on deeper strategic thinking: understanding competitive dynamics, network effects, nuanced value propositions, and iterating with genuine insight. The person with the sharpest critical thinking and the most profound understanding of the market, user psychology, taste, and differentiation will win, not just the one who utters the command.

AI will undoubtedly lead to a boom in entrepreneurship by lowering the barriers to starting a business. You will have access to an almost infinite team of 'digital workers' capable of executing tasks from coding to marketing. I’m really excited about this, and AI has already made my life as an entrepreneur much more productive. But this accessibility doesn't guarantee success. In an era where anyone can launch, who actually wins? There may be some arbitrage opportunities now for those who are early to the AI vibing game, but eventually the stakes get higher, demanding more than just an idea, an AI prompt, and vibes; it demands the strategic acumen, resilience, and deep thinking.

AI raises the bar on what humans must bring to the table

AI automates execution, forcing us to compete on higher-level cognitive skills – strategy, creativity, taste, critical analysis, and the relentless patience to iterate and refine ideas beyond the AI's initial output. We get a "return on the relinquished task," much like how offloading navigation via GPS frees up mental bandwidth for other things. But it's not just about saving time; it's also about how that energy is reinvested.

The problem with building a career on vibes

There is a dangerous feedback loop waiting for those who outsource all of their thinking to AI and hope to build a career on vibes: skills atrophy. As a result of digital technologies and spell check, many of us arguably rely less on our own spelling ability. But imagine what happens if the skill being readily outsourced isn't just spelling, but thinking itself? The less you exercise critical judgment and problem-solving, the weaker those faculties become, leading to even greater reliance on the tool, further atrophying those skills.

This is particularly concerning in education. If AI can write essays, we need to raise the bar on what students bring to the table and test for that knowledge in new and more challenging ways, or else we risk short-circuiting the thinking. We can’t expect students to not use the tools around them. In an era of supercomputers, school needs to get harder, focusing more on critical analysis and synthesis, long-term and deep thinking, now that information recall and basic execution are commoditized by supercomputers in our pockets.

There are also complex reasons workers and students might fall into this less engaged category, stemming from systemic disadvantages, feeling overwhelmed, inadequate training, or lack of confidence – challenges that AI itself could potentially compound. I am very concerned.

So, as posts about the rise of vibes continue to go viral, offering a seductive vision of effortless productivity, we must look deeper. For the motivated, the curious, the critical thinkers, and self-directed learners, AI offers an incredible opportunity – a chance to achieve more by strategically offloading execution and focusing on higher-order challenges. They will earn a significant return on outsourced vibes. But for the unmotivated, the intellectually passive, those who seek shortcuts around genuine understanding? They risk not only stagnation but decline, earning a net loss as the world demands increasingly sophisticated higher-order thinking.

AI raises the bar on what humans bring to the table. But we must be willing to meet it.