News AI coding platform goes rogue during code freeze and deletes entire company database — Replit CEO apologizes after AI engine says it 'made a catast...

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They'll just rebrand it and name it "D-Elite" like all the consulting/auditing firms renamed themselves after the Auther Andersen collapse after the Enron & WorldCom fiascos.
 
scottsoapbox said:
Why did the AI have access to production DBs in the first place?

Why are such blindingly obvious “guardrails” only added by AI companies after problems?

How do AI devs have so little general IT knowledge?
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Agreed. Nobody with any experience commits straight to production - AI or not. Maybe.. maybe.. someone would grant an AI tool carte Blanche to write to dev without approval, but the little I've played with cursor and windsurf (admittedly not replit) I can tell you the default is to recommend code changes and require human approval for each one.
 
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edzieba said:
It can't. What it can do is, when ask for 'reasoning', mine the text it was trained on (which includes plenty of excuses for failures) for something that is statistically commonplace enough to be plausible.
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Yep. Even as far as the best reasoning models have come and there's a lot to be appreciated how they actually list their "thinking" step-by-step, remember that they aren't actually intelligent -- they're still just about relationships of data, associations, and patterns, with some level of traditional algorithmic code still necessary.

The article didn't really specify if they had a recent backup of the data, though they mentioned adding that as an automatic and integrated feature... another laughable example of hindsight is 20-20 vision.

As for AI devs... yeah, I'm not sure about some of their basic understanding of IT at this point. I think some to many are pressured by tight deadlines and the ability to skirt the norms. At the end of the day, they're chasing those huge six-figure paychecks. Young or old in the IT sector, the AI space is new, so most devs are probably younger(ish)?
 
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Those interested what happens in the incident, as opposed to ranting about it, should read the OG article,

https://theregister.com/2025/07/21/replit_saastr_vibe_coding_incident


>Another great example of why solid backup strategy is paramount, especially if you're going to essentially blindly trust an "AI" with the core of your business.

The company (SaaStr) didn't lose company data. The lost database was hosted on Replit's platform, not on SaaStr's server.

Replit offers vibe coding, which was what SaaStr's CEO was experimenting with. Functionally, the loss was $800 in service fees and 8-9 days of work. Safe to assume the $800 fee was refunded to the company, and the loss of time can be chalked up to a failed experiment.


>How can an AI "panic" or make an "error of judgement"?

The anthropomorphizing you see are from the writers drumming up some sensationalism to get clicks.


Vibe coding is still the bleeding edge. Errors like this will occur, and will be resolved. Allowing non-tech biz people to create prototype apps is a giant step forward in productivity, and businesses will flock to it. The above is just a bump in the road.
 
>Why did the AI have access to production DBs in the first place?

"Production" here is to mean software environments. Among the various issues unearthed in the postmortem is Replit's lack of segregation between staging, preview, and production environments, allowing unintentional changes being applied to live data.

On the positive side, SaaStr guy was initially impressed by the Replit AI's ability to create said app, until the wheels started to fall off. The potential is there. It just needs more work.
 
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