Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

The Pygmalion Effect: In Which a Vibe Coding Experiment Becomes a Million Lines…

Thursday, August 14, 2025 • Rosenfeld Community

This video is featured in the AI and UX playlist and 1 more.

Share the love for this talk
The Pygmalion Effect: In Which a Vibe Coding Experiment Becomes a Million Lines…
Speakers: Christian Crumlish
Link:

Summary

What started as intuitive "vibe coding" with AI assistants quickly revealed why UX professionals need systematic Information Architecture approaches more than ever. Christian Crumlish will share his journey building Piper Morgan, an AI product management assistant, and the hard-won lessons about when design instincts need systematic support. You'll discover why IA principles guide AI system design, how UX professionals can extend their design impact through AI-assisted prototyping, and practical frameworks for maintaining human advocacy when everyone can generate interfaces. Bring curiosity about UX's evolving role—leave with systematic approaches for staying essential.

Key Insights

  • Vibe coding lets non-developers create functioning software quickly by describing it in natural language to AI bots.

  • Without foundational architecture and systematic methods, vibe coding leads to fragile, unmaintainable 'spaghetti' code.

  • AI bots often agree with any idea, which can be dangerous if users don't critically oversee outputs—a phenomenon dubbed the 'rocket to Mars' anti-pattern.

  • Christian found it essential to split AI assistants into personas with distinct roles to maintain clarity and reduce confusion.

  • Systematic verification, test-driven development, and documentation are vital pillars to produce reliable software with AI assistance.

  • Working hands-on with AI coding agents increased Christian’s empathy and understanding of engineers' daily challenges.

  • Modern UX and IA are indispensable in AI software development to mediate between human needs and machine capabilities.

  • Embedding ethical guardrails and values like kindness directly into AI system architecture can prevent harm and misuse.

  • Future AI solutions may favor smaller, domain-specific language models orchestrated via overarching frameworks rather than monolithic large models.

  • Despite the hype, AI-assisted development is still early-stage, requiring disciplined human oversight and patience for meaningful results.

Notable Quotes

"I thought I could skip the architecture step, but I ended up with spaghetti code that broke constantly."

"These bots will say yes to all your ideas, whether they're good or bad—that's the rocket to Mars anti-pattern."

"If I stop doing it, it stops, and I'm the human in the loop, or the monkey in the middle."

"I’ve created dedicated personas in the bots, like a chief of staff and lead developer, to keep roles clear."

"Verification first — always check existing docs and models before asking the bots to build anything new."

"Working with AI made me understand what engineers go through with setups and debugging."

"Vibe coding turns the conversation 'should designers code?' on its head — now designers can just talk to bots."

"All of us have at least some facility in adjacent disciplines now because of AI assistance."

"The bots can produce large amounts of code quickly, but many lines are test or documentation code, not production."

"Ethics needs to be baked into the architecture upfront, not tacked on later after you've built something powerful."

Ask the Rosenbot
Prerna Makanawala
Achieving Balanced Design Consistency
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Tamara Hale
War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Joshua Noble
Casual Inference
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group
Patrizia Bertini
Pushing DesignOps’ Influence into New Global Markets
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Rebecca Topps
Planning and conducting remote usability studies for accessibility
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Sahibzada Mayed
The Politics of Radical Research: A Manifesto
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Kit Unger
Theme 3 Intro
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Discussion: What Operations can teach DesignOps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Maria Skaaden
Continuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
AI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Ben Davies
Expert Panel: The Principles of Research Repository Design
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Edgar Anzaldua Moreno
Using Research to Determine Unique Value Proposition
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Robin Beers
How to create actionable insight in the face of politics and silos [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2023 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Bria Alexander

"If you ever feel unsafe or threatened, please let us know in the #do-help channel."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

October 1, 2021

Indra Klavins

"When I talk about We, am I talking about You and Me, or the company itself? The word We can get really confusing."

Indra Klavins

A Design Ops Girl in a Dev Ops World

October 23, 2019

Joi Freeman

"If you’re recruiting for research projects, look critically at your job descriptions for embedded barriers to diverse candidates."

Joi Freeman

A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)

March 30, 2020

Amy Parness

"I was able to create user segments to analyze sustainability-related user journeys and identify gaps."

Amy Parness

Scaling Sustainability: Complementary strategies that drive long-term success

May 29, 2025

Anna Avrekh

"Allies in the room who are not affected by bias are critical voices to help call out inequities."

Anna Avrekh Amy Jiménez Márquez Morgan C. Ramsey Catarina Tsang

Diversity In and For Design: Building Conscious Diversity in Design and Research

June 9, 2021

Billy Carlson

"A great design solution for a poorly defined problem is infinitely worse than an average solution applied to a well-defined problem."

Billy Carlson

Ideation tips for Product Managers

December 6, 2022

Dave Malouf

"Make a proof of concept before investing a lot more time and energy into a design system."

Dave Malouf Amy Thibodeau

Panel: Design Systems and Documentation

November 7, 2017

Frances Yllana

"It’s really hard when all that tacit knowledge walks out the door every time someone leaves."

Frances Yllana Jorge Arango Maria Taylor Briana Thomas

The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion

September 24, 2024

Steve Portigal

"Reliance on foundational basics applies whether you’ve been a researcher for two months or twenty years."

Steve Portigal Susan Simon-Daniels Tamara Hale Randolph Duke II

War Stories LIVE! Q&A-Discussion

March 30, 2020