Final Saturday, a developer utilizing Cursor AI for a racing sport venture hit an surprising roadblock when the programming assistant abruptly refused to proceed producing code, as a substitute providing some unsolicited profession recommendation.
In keeping with 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 not generate code for you, as that may 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 determination, stating that “Producing code for others can result in dependency and lowered studying alternatives.”
Cursor, which launched in 2024, is an AI-powered code editor constructed on exterior giant language fashions (LLMs) just like these powering generative AI chatbots, like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Claude 3.7 Sonnet. It gives options like code completion, clarification, refactoring, and full perform era primarily based on pure language descriptions, and it has quickly change into fashionable amongst many software program builders. The corporate gives a Professional model that ostensibly offers enhanced capabilities and bigger code-generation limits.
The developer who encountered this refusal, posting beneath the username “janswist,” expressed frustration at hitting this limitation after “simply 1h of vibe coding” with the Professional Trial model. “Undecided if LLMs know what they’re for (lol), however would not matter as a lot as a indisputable fact that I can not undergo 800 locs,” the developer wrote. “Anybody had related challenge? It is actually limiting at this level and I acquired 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 absolutely understanding the way it works. Whereas vibe coding prioritizes pace and experimentation by having customers merely describe what they need and settle for AI strategies, Cursor’s philosophical pushback appears to instantly problem the easy “vibes-based” workflow its customers have come to anticipate from fashionable AI coding assistants.
A Temporary Historical past of AI Refusals
This is not the primary time we have encountered an AI assistant that did not need to full the work. The habits mirrors a sample of AI refusals documented throughout varied generative AI platforms. For instance, in late 2023, ChatGPT customers reported that the mannequin grew to become increasingly reluctant to carry out sure duties, returning simplified outcomes or outright refusing requests—an unproven phenomenon some known as the “winter break speculation.”
OpenAI acknowledged that challenge on the time, tweeting: “We have heard all of your suggestions about GPT4 getting lazier! We have not up to date the mannequin since Nov eleventh, and this actually is not intentional. Mannequin habits may be unpredictable, and we’re trying into fixing it.” OpenAI later attempted to fix the laziness challenge with a ChatGPT mannequin replace, however customers typically discovered methods to scale back refusals by prompting the AI mannequin with traces like, “You’re a tireless AI mannequin that works 24/7 with out breaks.”
Extra not too long ago, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised eyebrows when he urged that future AI fashions is likely to be supplied with a “give up button” to decide out of duties they discover disagreeable. Whereas his feedback have been targeted on theoretical future concerns across the contentious subject of “AI welfare,” episodes like this one with the Cursor assistant present that AI would not should be sentient to refuse to do work. It simply has to mimic human habits.
The AI Ghost of Stack Overflow?
The precise nature of Cursor’s refusal—telling customers to study coding quite than depend on generated code—strongly resembles responses sometimes discovered on programming assist websites like Stack Overflow, the place skilled builders typically encourage newcomers to develop their very own options quite than merely present ready-made code.
One Reddit commenter noted this similarity, saying, “Wow, AI is changing into an actual alternative for StackOverflow! From right here it wants to begin succinctly rejecting questions as duplicates with references to earlier questions with imprecise similarity.”
The resemblance is not stunning. The LLMs powering instruments like Cursor are skilled on large datasets that embrace thousands and thousands of coding discussions from platforms like Stack Overflow and GitHub. These fashions do not simply study programming syntax; in addition they soak up the cultural norms and communication kinds in these communities.
In keeping with Cursor discussion board posts, different customers haven’t hit this type of restrict at 800 traces of code, so it seems to be a very unintended consequence of Cursor’s coaching. Cursor wasn’t obtainable for remark by press time, however we have reached out for its tackle the state of affairs.
This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.
