What is 'vibe coding' and why is it going mainstream?
Andrej Karpathy coined a term for when you stop reading code and just let the AI handle it.
The answer
In February 2025, former Tesla AI director and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy posted on X about a new approach he called 'vibe coding' - where you 'fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.' Instead of writing code manually, you describe what you want in natural language, accept all AI-generated changes without reviewing diffs, and iterate by describing bugs conversationally. Karpathy used Cursor Composer with Claude Sonnet and voice input via SuperWhisper. The term went viral - Merriam-Webster listed it as 'slang & trending' in March 2025, and Collins English Dictionary named it Word of the Year for 2025. It sparked intense debate about whether non-programmers building functional software represents democratization or dangerous technical debt.
Source: Wikipedia
- vibe coding
- karpathy
- natural language programming
- ai-assisted development
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