Iconic PlayStation hacker and homebrew developer Andy ‘TheFlow0’ Nguyen has abandoned the ongoing PS5 Linux project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces.
Nguyen, who famously created the first kernel exploit for the PlayStation Vita, has spent over a decade creating exploits and homebrew for PlayStation systems. As one of the leaders behind the ongoing PS5 Linux project, which brought modern PC gaming to the console, the developer was also bringing the full Linux OS experience to Sony’s PS5 with miraculous results.
In an update on social media, the modder announced that they would be “stepping away from the PS5 scene” as well as ending their work on PS5 Linux. “After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it’s all down the sink,” they said.
Nguyen, like many other homebrew developers recently, explained that they are ending the project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces. Recently, brilliant PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 announced a ban on vibe coding participants due to the fact that vibe-coders in open-source spaces are submitting code that they do not actually understand.
In Nguyen’s words, “the scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don’t even understand”. Additionally, it seems that vibe-coders, or “slop kiddies” as the modder dubbed them, used AI to detect a bug that they were using to crack consoles, and reported it to Sony for a bounty.
“Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.”
With this in mind, it seems that the progress on PS5 Linux for consoles on newer OS versions may have been ruined by the reporting of this bug. This means that the last version of PS5 Linux to be helmed by the modder is the currently available Version 2.5 which supports PS5 Phat and Slim console running 3.00-7.61 firmwares.
“Slop kiddies” is a great term. Everytime I hear a non-native eng speaker proudly say they do vibe coding I cringe a little
I cringe anytime anyone says it
WHat being non-native speaker has to do with vibe coding?
I struggle to articulate this but I feel like there’s a slightly different vibe (pun not intended) to AI brainrotted people who don’t have English as a primary language. It’s a fine line to just being racist about like Indian people.
I’ll try to get the bare bones across.
I’m a non native English speaker. For me, English is a universal language for science, knowledge, research, it’s the base for programming, it’s the widest pop culture vector, it’s so many doorways into the global wider world. It’s also the language of business, which I guess I take for granted.
English is the doorway to many things. It’s a language that a lot of us have to make effort to learn and infinitely more effort to learn well.
This software speaks in English. If you believe it’s intelligent, and articulate English is something that has categorically been hard to achieve for you and people around you, and that it’s a signifier of intelligence, business acumen, poetic ability or whatever, then you probably perceive this software as even more intelligent.
Am I clumsily, unknowingly still barking up a racism tree? I can see what I’m trying to describe in my day to day. Native English speakers can love slop all the same but there’s something ever so slightly different there.
I’m somewhat empathetic to people online using it to clean up their English but it’s just so simultaneously bland and saccharine and just unpleasant
Guessing they just don’t understand the stigma the term has and seem proud to be a vibecoder
My bad I was actually thinking of non-English discussions AFK, I guess I wonder if they know the meaning even more, and it’s weird that they already feel cool just by using an English expression