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
Etienne Fang
Power of Insights: Why sharing is better than silos with Uber’s Insights Platform
2019 • Advancing Research Community
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Scher Foord
Turn the Ship Around: How to Apply Design Thinking Across Your Organization
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Alissa Briggs
How to Coach Enterprise Experimentation
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Ariel Kennan
Theme Two Intro
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Bria Alexander
Reflect and Chart Forward
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Rusha Sopariwala
Remote, Together: Craft and Collaboration Across Disciplines, Borders, Time Zones, and a Design Org of 170+
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Robin Beers
Navigating organizational systems: Rethinking researcher’s role in driving change
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Iulia Cornigeanu
QuantQual Book Club: Small Data
2024 • QuantQual Interest Group
Marjorie Stainback
What Research Ops Professionals Have Learned from COVID-19
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Jemma Ahmed
Theme Panel
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Abbey Smalley
Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
George Abraham
Design Systems To-Go: Reimagining Developer Handoff, and Introducing App Builder (Part 2)
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jon Fukuda
Theme 3 Intro
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold

More Videos

Sha Hwang

"The infrastructure of civilization was someone else’s problem. What a lie that was. It was my problem this whole time."

Sha Hwang

The Lost Year

June 11, 2021

Uday Gajendar

"In the wickedness of enterprise UX, craft keeps you grounded amidst competing perspectives and political eddies."

Uday Gajendar

The Wicked Craft of Enterprise UX

May 13, 2015

Joanna Vodopivec

"Partnering with market researchers allowed us to ask specific product questions within their long-running exit survey."

Joanna Vodopivec Prabhas Pokharel

One Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority

March 9, 2022

Victor Udoewa

"Transformation research is a transformative force."

Victor Udoewa

Theme One Intro

March 27, 2023

Tricia Wang

"Building trust across functions means simple acts like scheduling lunch or coffee meetings with no agenda."

Tricia Wang

The most popular design thinking strategy is BS

January 27, 2022

Kevin M. Hoffman

"When product leaders ask for research just to validate ideas, the best response is to say, ‘fuck this group,’ then do real user interviews."

Kevin M. Hoffman

Theme 2: Enterprise Team Journey

June 3, 2019

Josh Clark

"The big design activity here is sketching prompts, guiding how the AI should behave rather than drawing UI."

Josh Clark Veronika Kindred

Sentient Scenes and Radically Adaptive Experiences

June 11, 2025

Cennydd Bowles

"Companies know they’re doing wrong but don’t change because incentives don’t align or they lack operational competence."

Cennydd Bowles

Responsible Design in Reality

June 9, 2021

Nathan Curtis

"Should you separate design from code? In some multi-framework environments, yes, it makes sense."

Nathan Curtis

Design Systems for Us: How Many One-Source(s)-of-Truth Are Enough?

January 17, 2019