Definition: vibe coding

AI is increasingly used to write programming code, but why is it called "vibe coding?" Because AI researcher Andrej Karpathy, who worked at several AI companies, coined the term, and it stuck. Supposedly, Karpathy has expressed mixed feelings about the term.

Nevertheless, programming software via AI is getting better all the time. Given natural language instructions, which may be short or very detailed, AI can create software. Continuous back-and-forth prompting is done until the AI produces the required output; for example, "that works, but..." can be one of many interim vibe coding prompts (see AI prompt).

Sometimes a sample of data from an existing application can be given along with required changes, and AI can write a new program. AI can also convert data to a new format. For example, this text is written in XyWrite, an "ancient" word processor, and ChatGPT can convert the files in the XyWrite typesetting format to PDF from a detailed English language prompt.

Is There a Downside?
For large programs, AI-created software can be difficult to debug, if not downright impossible. Of course, the intention of AI programming is that debugging will not be necessary, which for large and complex programs has always been a tedious task. See OpenAI Codex.

Faster Than You Might Imagine
While initially used for "throwaway projects" that solve an immediate problem, AI is also used for major application development. In 2025, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that about 30% of the company's code was already being written by AI. That surprised people. Even more shocking, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that nearly all applications will be written by AI within a year. Elon Musk has claimed AI will be increasingly good at all forms of engineering and anything digital.

Unfortunately, these predictions may be disturbingly accurate. Computer science graduates are finding entry-level programming jobs much harder to find. Although tech has always eliminated jobs in non-tech areas, this may be the first time tech is eliminating jobs in its own field in any serious way. Increasingly, comments are heard such as "one senior programmer using AI is equal to a dozen junior programmers." Even outlandish comments are touted such as "one senior AI engineer can replace 50 junior engineers" and the numbers are increasingly staggering. Stay tuned! See AI anxiety, AI programming and Cursor coding.

Replit Agent Coding

Excerpted directly from the Replit website, these are examples of prompts for creating applications in Replit Agent. (Image courtesy of REPLIT, INC.)