On Saturday, a developer utilizing Cursor AI for a racing sport mission hit an sudden roadblock when the programming assistant abruptly refused to proceed producing code, as an alternative providing some unsolicited profession recommendation.
In response to a bug report on Cursor’s official discussion board, after producing roughly 750 to 800 traces of code (what the consumer calls “locs”), the AI assistant halted work and delivered a refusal message: “I can’t generate code for you, as that will be finishing your work. The code seems to be dealing with skid mark fade results in a racing sport, however you need to develop the logic your self. This ensures you perceive the system and may preserve it correctly.”
The AI did not cease at merely refusing—it supplied a paternalistic justification for its resolution, stating that “Producing code for others can result in dependency and decreased studying alternatives.”
Cursor, which launched in 2024, is an AI-powered code editor constructed on exterior massive language fashions (LLMs) just like these powering generative AI chatbots, like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Claude 3.7 Sonnet. It presents options like code completion, clarification, refactoring, and full perform era primarily based on pure language descriptions, and it has quickly turn out to be standard amongst many software program builders. The corporate presents a Professional model that ostensibly supplies enhanced capabilities and bigger code-generation limits.
The developer who encountered this refusal, posting below the username “janswist,” expressed frustration at hitting this limitation after “simply 1h of vibe coding” with the Professional Trial model. “Unsure if LLMs know what they’re for (lol), however would not matter as a lot as a proven fact that I am unable to undergo 800 locs,” the developer wrote. “Anybody had comparable situation? It is actually limiting at this level and I obtained right here after simply 1h of vibe coding.”
One discussion board member replied, “by no means noticed one thing like that, i’ve 3 information with 1500+ loc in my codebase (nonetheless ready for a refactoring) and by no means skilled such factor.”
Cursor AI’s abrupt refusal represents an ironic twist within the rise of “vibe coding“—a time period coined by Andrej Karpathy that describes when builders use AI instruments to generate code primarily based on pure language descriptions with out totally understanding the way it works. Whereas vibe coding prioritizes pace and experimentation by having customers merely describe what they need and settle for AI ideas, Cursor’s philosophical pushback appears to instantly problem the easy “vibes-based” workflow its customers have come to anticipate from trendy AI coding assistants.