Large language models are reshaping programming by enabling 'vibe coding': the development of softwares through natural-language interaction with model-driven toolchains. This article argues that vibe coding is best understood as interface flattening, a reconfiguration in which previously distinct modalities (GUI, CLI, and API) appear to converge into a single conversational surface, even as the underlying chain of translation from intention to machinic effect lengthens and thickens. Drawing on Friedrich Kittler's materialist media theory and Alexander Galloway's account of interfaces as sites of protocol control, the paper situates programming as a historically localised interface arrangement rather than an essential relation to computation. Through a materialist reconstruction of the contemporary vibe-coding stack, it shows how remote compute infrastructures, latency and connectivity, structured outputs, function/tool calling, and interoperability standards such as the Model Context Protocol relocate control and meaning-making power to model and protocol providers. The apparent democratisation of technical capability therefore depends on new dependencies and new literacies. By foregrounding the tension between experiential flattening and infrastructural thickening, I demonstrate how LLM-mediated development redistributes symbolic labour/power, obscures responsibility, and privatises competencies previously dispersed across programming communities, contributing a critical lens on the political economy of AI-mediated human-computer interaction.

翻译：大型语言模型正在通过支持"氛围编程"重塑软件开发：即通过与模型驱动的工具链进行自然语言交互来开发软件。本文认为，氛围编程最宜理解为界面扁平化——一种界面重构过程，其中先前不同的交互模态（图形用户界面、命令行界面和应用程序接口）看似融合为单一对话界面，而实现意图到机器效果的底层翻译链却在不断延长和复杂化。借鉴弗里德里希·基特勒的唯物主义媒介理论和亚历山大·加洛韦关于界面作为协议控制场所的论述，本文将编程定位为历史性的局部界面安排，而非与计算技术的本质性关联。通过对当代氛围编程技术栈的唯物主义重构，本文揭示了远程计算基础设施、延迟与连接性、结构化输出、函数/工具调用以及模型上下文协议等互操作性标准，如何将控制权与意义建构能力转移至模型和协议提供商。技术能力表面上的民主化，实则依赖于新的依赖关系和新的素养要求。通过凸显体验扁平化与基础设施复杂化之间的张力，本文论证了大型语言模型中介的开发如何重新分配符号劳动/权力、模糊责任归属，并将原本分散在编程社区中的能力私有化，从而为人工智能中介的人机交互政治经济学提供了批判性视角。