The term “vibe coding” has spread across the internet to describe a method of AI-assisted programming that is already deeply controversial. While proponents laud the technology that makes it possible for those with little coding knowledge to make simple video games for their kids, detractors worry about the future impacts of low-quality code under more sensitive circumstances.
Anything about AI manages to drum up online discourse these days, and some coders are dismissing concerns as hysteria. However, there are already examples of this practice causing unforeseen problems for vibe coders, and these unfortunate individuals are getting dunked on hard.
What is vibe coding—and why is it controversial?
Vibe coding occurs when a programmer enters a description of something they want to create into a code-focused large language model (LLM) and allows the AI to generate the software. Instead of actually writing the code, the programmer can easily check, test, and refine what the LLM creates.
@swoleswe Vibe coding yap #vibecoding #computerscience #csmajors #programmerhumor ♬ Hide CS01 Version – bitchbaby
Theoretically, this allows amateur coders to engage in advanced software engineering without taking years to learn how to do it themselves. Sometimes called “tab, tab, tab coding,” the laziest or least skilled programmer could do little more than push a single button over and over to approve of what the LLM is doing until it spits out the desired software.
“It’s not really coding – I just see things, say things, run things, and copy-paste things, and it mostly works,” said OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy.
Where did the term ‘vibe coding’ come from?
Karpathy is often credited with the invention of the term “vibe coding.” In a post on X from Feb. 2, 2025, he claimed the phrase and described it as a state in which “you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.” In the post, he explains how he uses an LLM to cobble code together when he doesn’t want to do it himself.
“I ask for the dumbest things like ‘decrease the padding on the sidebar by half’ because I’m too lazy to find it,” he writes, “I ‘Accept All’ always, I don’t read the diffs anymore. When I get error messages I just copy paste them in with no comment, usually that fixes it … Sometimes the LLMs can’t fix a bug so I just work around it or ask for random changes until it goes away.”
The real origins appear to be the Visual Studio Code dev team, which signed off on a post introducing their “GitHub Copilot agent mode” by saying “Happy vibe coding!” They published the blog post on Feb. 24, a day prior to Karpathy’s post.
Critics warn vibe coding could lead to disaster
While Karpathy says vibe coding works alright for “throwaway weekend projects,” concern soon arose over what other work people might use this method for. A lot of coders seem to think that not everyone can be trusted to use this kind of power responsibly. This led to jokes about hypothetical programmers who “just VIBE CODED a critical security vulnerability into existence,” for example.
One X user who bragged about using this method to create a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) program complained about being “under attack” two days later.
In their second post, @leojr94_ said that “ever since I started to share how I build my SaaS using Cursor, random things are happening, maxed out usage on API keys, people bypassing the subscription, creating random sh*t on db.”
On the same day, other X users started mocking them for making an insecure program.
“Quick reminder: I’m charging $1,000/hour to fix your vibe-coded mess,” said computer scientist @svpino.
Vibe coding defenders say it’s harmless fun
Others however, defend the use of vibe coding for personal projects.
“Y’all can hate on vibe coding all you want but I’m a freaking hero to my kids for making a math video game,” wrote developer @wesbos.
The debate became so intense, spreading across every mainstream social media platform, that one Reddit user complained people won’t shut up about it.
“Has this become the only topic here?” asked u/Mezo123451a2. “And the fact that some people are so triggered by it is really laughable. If someone spends money, they can do whatever they want with it. And I don’t mean to say that I’m a vibe coder; I’m just concerned that my entire Reddit consists of vibe code topics.”
Memes erupt as programmers roast AI-generated code
As the term started to appear in feeds across every tech-aligned social media account and beyond, the vibe coding memes became inevitable.
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