What do I (really) think of vibe coding?
Building on my last four-part essay on navigating the hype surrounding AGI and agentic AI, I want to share my take on vibe coding. I am concerned we're getting distracted again by terms like 'vibe coding,' 'AI-first,' and 'human-in-the-loop,' especially when people stretch them beyond their original context with statements like “you don’t need to learn to code” or when companies claim majority of their code is written by AI. In this post, I’ll double down on vibe coding and will revisit my thoughts on the other terms in a later posts.
For context, I wrote about why I don't believe in AGI hype or in an agentic future built without proper model governance capabilities, responsible AI risk mitigation tools, systems thinking, or design that establishes evaluation criteria and testing standards. Deploying chatbots with unchecked agency is a recipe for disaster, as recent incidents like this week's tariff calculation errors demonstrate. This issue was highlighted in a post by Gary Marcus1 and Brian Merchant2 (links included below). AI in its current stage is insufficient to run human society because current models lack sufficient maturity, testing, and governance for widespread public use. Furthermore, our collective AI literacy is in its very early stages, meaning there's a high risk of misuse and exploitation without adequate accountability. With that context now let’s unpack vibe coding.
Vibe coding is a term used for coding with the assistance of AI, where you describe what you want to create using natural language, and an AI tool builds the application for you. Instead of writing code line by line, you provide instructions to an AI-powered coding platform, and the AI generates the code based on your prompt.
Examples of AI-powered coding platforms: Cursor, Replit and Codium are a few examples of AI-powered coding platforms that can be used for vibe coding.
I have two pieces of advice for the aspiring vibe coders:
Prioritize coding literacy: Consider why learning to code is still a valuable endeavor in the age of AI-assisted coding.
Plan for sustainable development: If you're working with unfamiliar AI-generated code, proactively seek ways to understand it, develop your application effectively, and build the expertise needed for ongoing maintenance and updates. Essentially, take complete ownership of not just the code, but also the experience this code delivers to the end user.