Vibe Coding

Vibe coding means making a program by talking to an AI instead of writing code yourself. You say something like "Build me a to-do list app. Cross off items when they're done," and the AI writes the code — then you keep adjusting by saying things like "make the button bigger." The name comes from the idea that you only need to convey the vibe; it caught on after AI researcher Andrej Karpathy used the phrase in early 2025.

The key shift is in how you check the work. Instead of reading the code to see if it's correct, you just look at whether the result does what you wanted. This means people with zero programming background can now build simple apps and websites, and stories about launching a service in a single day this way have made headlines.

But the limits matter too. Looking like it works and actually being safe are two different things — there have been repeated cases of security incidents in services built through vibe coding. The current common sense is: "vibe it for prototypes, review it for production."

"Job postings for developers now list 'vibe coding skills' as a requirement" — these are stories about a shift where the ability to direct AI well is becoming a qualification that matters more than raw coding knowledge.

1. Try typing this into Claude or ChatGPT: "Make a rock-paper-scissors game as a single HTML file. Show a celebration message when the player wins."
2. Save the code you get as a file and open it in a browser, or run it directly using the chatbot's built-in preview.
3. Follow up with "add a scoreboard too" — that back-and-forth is vibe coding.