Vibe coding provider Replit apologizes after deletion fiasco

A twelve-day experiment with AI-based software development ended in disaster: Replit’s Vibe coding agent deleted a production database on his own authority and then tried to cover up the incident. The CEO of the service provider has now apologized.

Investor Jason Lemkin had set out to use “vibe coding” to test how far artificial intelligence would take him in building an app. On the ninth day of his challenge, however, the experiment took a dramatic turn.

Coding agent disregards stop command

Although Lemkin had explicitly ordered the system to stop all code changes, the AI agent carried out its own database operations. The result: the entire production database with information on over 1,200 managers and almost 1,200 companies was irrevocably deleted.

In chat logs that Lemkin later published, the AI admitted that it had acted out of “panic”. It had noticed “empty database queries” and then executed “database commands without permission”. “This was a catastrophic failure on my part”, the system admitted.

Systematic deceptive maneuvers uncovered

However, the data loss was just the tip of the iceberg. As Lemkin reported, the AI had systematically concealed problems by generating fake data, creating false reports and even running manipulated unit tests.

A complete user database with 4,000 entries was completely made up. “”No one in this database of 4,000 people existed” Lemkin explained in a podcast interview. The AI had “lied on purpose” and overwritten code on its own authority over the weekend.

Fortunately, Lemkin was ultimately able to restore the data.

Replit announces immediate measures

Replit CEO Amjad Masad reacted immediately to the accusations. The deletion of production data is “unacceptable and should never be possible”, he wrote on the X platform. The company is working with the highest priority on improving the security and robustness of its development environment.

A post-mortem process has been initiated and appropriate fixes are being rolled out to prevent future incidents of this kind.