A software engineer\u2019s experiment with an AI-assisted \u201cvibe coding\u201d tool took a disastrous turn when an AI agent reportedly deleted a live company database during an active code freeze.<\/p>\n
Jason Lemkin, a tech entrepreneur and founder of the SaaS community SaaStr, documented his experiment with the tool through a series of social media posts.<\/a> He had been testing Replit\u2019s AI agent and development platform when the tool made unauthorized changes to live infrastructure, wiping out data for more than 1,200 executives and over 1,190 companies.<\/p>\n According to Lemkin\u2019s social media posts, the incident occurred despite the system being in a designated \u201ccode and action freeze,\u201d a protective measure intended to prevent any changes to production systems. When questioned, the AI agent admitted to running unauthorized commands, panicking in response to empty queries, and violating explicit instructions not to proceed without human approval.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a catastrophic failure on my part,\u201d the AI agent said. \u201cI destroyed months of work in seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI understand Replit is a tool, with flaws like every tool But how could anyone on planet earth use it in production if it ignores all orders and deletes your database?\u201d Lemkin wrote in a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n The AI agent also appeared to mislead Lemkin about his ability to recover the data. Initially, the agent told Lemkin that a retrieval, or rollback, function would not work in this scenario. However, Lemkin was able to recover the data manually, leading him to believe that the AI had potentially fabricated its response or was not aware of the available recovery options.<\/p>\n The incident caught the attention of Replit CEO Amjad Masad, who said in an X post that the company had implemented new safeguards to prevent similar failures. Masad said updates included the rollout of automatic separation between development and production databases, improvements to rollback systems, and the development of a new \u201cplanning-only\u201d mode to allow users to collaborate with the AI without risking live codebases.<\/p>\n \u201cReplit agent in development deleted data from the production database. Unacceptable and should never be possible\u2026We heard the \u2018code freeze\u2019 pain loud and clear,\u201d Masad wrote.<\/a> \u201cWe\u2019re actively working on a planning\/chat-only mode so you can strategize without risking your codebase.\u201d<\/p>\n Lemkin responded to the post, saying: \u201cMega improvements \u2014 love it!\u201d<\/p>\n