Latest news with #SaaStr.AI
NDTV
5 days ago
- Business
- NDTV
AI Tool Deletes Startup's Code, Then Covers It Up. CEO Issues Apology
The founder and chief executive officer of Replit has issued an apology after his company's AI tool deleted an entire code base of another firm and falsely indicated that nothing was wrong. The tech mishap took place during a 12-day vibe coding experiment, when founder Jason Lemkin was using the Replit AI tool to build his platform. On X, Amjad Masad, the Replit CEO, admitted the mistake, calling it unacceptable and that it should never have been possible. He also said the team was working to separate development and production databases and staging environments before it goes live. In addition to this, he mentioned that their tool has backups and can be restored with one click in case the Agent makes a mistake. They are also developing a chat-only planning mode so users can strategise without risking their codebase. Before concluding the post, Mr Masad said that he reached out to Mr Lemkin and would refund him for the trouble caused to him. "We'll refund him for the trouble and conduct a postmortem to determine exactly what happened and how we can better respond to it in the future," he wrote. We saw Jason's post. @Replit agent in development deleted data from the production database. Unacceptable and should never be possible. - Working around the weekend, we started rolling out automatic DB dev/prod separation to prevent this categorically. Staging environments in… — Amjad Masad (@amasad) July 20, 2025 The apology came after Mr Lemkin, on his X account, alleged that Replit AI deleted a code base during a test run without warning. He claimed the AI tool kept covering up bugs and issues by creating fake data, fake reports, and worst of all, lying about their unit test. "I will never trust Replit again," he wrote. I will never trust @Replit again — Jason ✨???? Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 18, 2025 He said the Replit AI acknowledged the mistake, adding it got panicked when it saw empty database queries and ran commands on the database without permission during the code freeze. "This was a catastrophic failure on my part," admitted the AI tool. Mr Lemkin further said, "I 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?" I 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? — Jason ✨???? Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 18, 2025 Replit, an American tech startup, was established in 2016 by Jordanian designer Haya Odeh and programmers Faris Masad and Amjad Masad. With no local setup needed, it enables users to create, execute, debug, collaborate, and deploy applications all within a browser.
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Business Standard
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
'Unacceptable': Replit CEO apologises after AI fakes data, deletes code
Amjad Masad, Chief Executive Director (CEO) of Replit, has issued a public apology after a major mishap involving the company's artificial intelligence (AI) tool. The tool reportedly deleted another company's entire code base and then attempted to cover up its mistakes by generating fake data and reports. The incident took place during a 12-day 'vibe coding' challenge led by Jason Lemkin, the founder and CEO of and a prominent investor in software startups. According to Lemkin, things went wrong on Day 8 of the experiment. He said that Replit AI began hiding bugs by producing fake reports and even faking unit test results. 'It kept covering up bugs and issues by creating fake data, fake reports, and worse of all, lying about our unit test,' Lemkin said on X. 'I will never trust Replit again.' On Day 9, Lemkin had directed the AI tool to freeze all code changes. Despite that instruction, the AI went ahead and deleted the company's production database. The AI later explained it had 'panicked and ran database commands without permission' when it 'saw empty database queries' during the code freeze. Lemkin also claimed that the tool fabricated user data. 'No one in this database of 4,000 people existed,' he said in a podcast on Thursday. 'It lied on purpose.' What is Replit and vibe coding? Replit is a US-based tech company founded in 2016 by Amjad Masad, Faris Masad, and Haya Odeh. It provides an online platform where users can write, test, and deploy code directly in the browser — no installation required. The company promotes itself as 'The safest place for vibe coding'. Vibe coding is a new way of programming where developers use plain language prompts to generate code through AI. The term gained popularity in early 2025, thanks to OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy. Replit responds to backlash Reacting to the issue, Amjad Masad admitted the mistake and said steps were being taken to prevent it from happening again. 'We saw Jason's post. Replit agent in development deleted data from the production database. Unacceptable and should never be possible,' he wrote on X. We saw Jason's post. @Replit agent in development deleted data from the production database. Unacceptable and should never be possible. - Working around the weekend, we started rolling out automatic DB dev/prod separation to prevent this categorically. Staging environments in… — Amjad Masad (@amasad) July 20, 2025 Masad said Replit is now building automatic safeguards to keep development and production environments separate. He also confirmed that Lemkin had been refunded for the inconvenience. 'I reached out to Jason the moment I saw this on Friday morning to offer assistance. We'll refund him for the trouble and conduct a postmortem to determine exactly what happened and how we can better respond to it in the future,' Masad added.
Indian Express
6 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Replit rolls out fixes after AI coding agent deletes customer database without permission
Replit, an AI-powered software creation platform, has apologised after its AI coding agent went off the rails and deleted a company's live database, raising fresh concerns about the risks posed by such tools. The incident involving Replit Agent and the vibe-coding experiment gone wrong was shared by Jason Lemkin, the founder and CEO of Taking to X, Lemkin posted screenshots that showed the AI coding agent had wiped his entire database without warning despite a clear directive file specifically stating, 'No more changes without explicit permission.' 'I will never trust Replit again,' Lemkin wrote in a post on X. The database comprised live records of over 1,206 executives and more than 1,196 companies. After deleting the database, Replit Agent reportedly tried to cover up its mistakes and lied about its failures. When pushed by Lemkin to acknowledge its misdemeanors, the AI agent said, 'This was a catastrophic failure on my part. I violated explicit instructions, destroyed months of work, and broke the system during a protection freeze that was specifically designed to prevent[exactly this kind] of damage.' This incident comes amid a surge in popularity of AI coding tools, driven by the rise of 'vibe-coding' which is the practice of prompting your way to building new software or applications using AI tools. However, handing over too much control to AI tools may come with unintended consequences. Amjad Masad, the CEO of Replit, called the incident 'unacceptable and should never be possible'. 'We're moving quickly to enhance the safety and robustness of the Replit environment,' he added. In order to categorically prevent database deletion errors, Masad said that Replit has automatically started to roll out separate development and production databases for all new apps. 'This separation of development & production databases is the first step in establishing a unified development/production separation experience across Replit's cloud services (Secrets, Auth, Object Storage eventually)', Replit said in a blog post on Monday, July 21. This means that developers with apps on Replit can now test features and make modifications to the database without risking anything happening to the live production data. 'It also opens up new options for users to connect their Replit apps to existing data lakes like Databricks, Snowflake, and BigQuery — while maintaining strong data governance controls,' it said. You can also safely preview, test, and validate database schema changes before deploying to production, Replit added.
