AI, or Artificial Intelligence, was a creation of the tech community. Imagine the same community now getting worried about its own creation.

It is exactly what’s happening today at various levels. But everyone, from the top corporate honchos to the budding techies in start-up hubs, knows that the genie has been out of the bottle for quite some time. There is no putting it back now.

Here, we are talking about “vibe coding,” the new trend that is being debated by everyone who has anything to do with technology.

What exactly does it mean? Is it just a passing trend, or are we witnessing a historic shift in how humans interact with machines?

What is ‘vibe coding’?

Essentially, it means building software not by manually writing lines of code, but by telling the computer what you want and letting it write the code for you.

For example, if you are planning to create an impressive food blog, you don’t have to write the code yourself. Instead, you tell the computer: “Build a food blog with a simple, clean, yet impressive design, along with a contact form.”

The AI writes the code, and you simply refine the product until you are satisfied. What used to require a senior engineer can now be initiated with clear instructions in plain English, by ‘vibing’ or conversing with the machine.

The origin of the phrase

The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI (the organisation behind ChatGPT) and a former Director of AI at Tesla.

In early February 2025, he posted a tweet that set the internet on fire:

“There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding’, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.”

What made his tweet go viral was his description of the process. He admitted he would “Accept All” AI suggestions without even reading the code. If there was a bug, he wouldn’t fix it manually; he’d simply paste the error back to the AI or ask for “random changes” until it worked.

While the term arrived in 2025, Karpathy had set the stage in January 2023 when he famously declared: “The hottest new programming language is English.” He was suggesting a fundamental shift away from languages like C++ or Python toward natural human-to-machine communication.

Is it good or bad?

This is the big debate. Every path-breaking technological innovation leads to a mix of excitement and anxiety, and vibe coding is no different.

On the brighter side, developers can focus on high-level architecture rather than repetitive tasks. Secondly, someone running a small boutique can build their own inventory tool without hiring a professional developer. And thirdly, it removes the tedious, “boring” parts of manual coding.

On the flipside, people may enter the field without understanding how software actually works. Secondly, while AI-generated code is easy to create, is it secure or scalable for millions of users? And, thirdly, there is a lingering fear that the future of entry-level coding roles might become bleak.

The ‘calculator theory’

For a youngster in India today, does vibe coding create opportunities or take them away?

It is true that a 17-year-old can now create an app prototype that previously required a small team. They can become “builders” much earlier in life, which is incredibly powerful.

To understand this, look at the calculator. We have had them for decades, but have children stopped learning addition or multiplication tables? Have engineering students stopped learning complex mathematical concepts? No. The tool simply changed where we apply our brainpower.

The shift in skills

The calculator analogy proves that if you rely entirely on AI without understanding basic logic, data structures, or security, your growth will be limited. The “trick” is to learn the fundamentals while using AI as a powerful tool, not a crutch.

Even Karpathy has evolved his stance. This month (February 2026), exactly one year after coining the term, he introduced a more “professional” version: “Agentic Engineering.” 

He feels that while “vibe coding” is fun for weekend hacks, professional work requires “Agentic Engineering”, where we supervise AI agents with actual engineering discipline. It isn’t about eliminating skills; it’s about shifting them. We still need the skill sets to instruct AI properly, verify its output, and ensure it isn’t building something biased or harmful.

So, vibe coding is neither magic nor a menace; it is just another tech tool. For the general public, it means ideas become reality faster. For developers, it means adaptation is essential.

In the end, it’s not about replacing humans. It’s about the collaboration between human imagination and machine intelligence.

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