The genie is a term coined by Kent Beck, defined in TDD, AI agents and coding with Kent Beck
The best analogy I could find is a genie. It grants you wishes. And then you wish for something and you get it but it’s not what you actually wanted. Sometimes it even seems like the [genie] has it in for you.
Kent has been talking about the metaphor since April 28, 2025 and elaborated further in Augmented Coding and Design, Genie wants to Leap and Augmented Coding: Beyond the Vibes.
It is a good metaphor to have. LLM coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAi Context, etc.) are not assistants. They do not try their best to fulfill your intent. They just multiply numbers and sometimes that results in what you wanted and sometimes it does not. You cannot get them to consistently comply by saying "think hard" or putting "IMPORTANT" everywhere. They just predict the next token.
The results are impressive and — dare I say it — useful, but it’s best not to anthropomorphize them. These are not people, they are tools. It’s up to us to figure out where their use is appropriate. And when you use them for coding, it’s best to think of them as a genie. It might give you what you want, but do not think for a second that you can trick it into giving you what you want.