A revolution is quietly taking place at the keyboard. Programmers are setting aside line-by-line coding and instead directing artificial intelligence with simple conversation. This method, called “vibe coding,” allows for unheard-of speed in software creation and opens the door to a new class of builders. Yet it brings new and subtle dangers, from critical security flaws to code that no human fully understands, forcing a reckoning with the price of progress.
This is Bratislava. A programmer sits back, hands behind his head. He is not typing. He is talking to his computer.
“Build a simple web app,” he says. “A to-do list. Users need to log in. It needs a database.”
The screen fills with lines of code. An artificial intelligence is writing it. The human watches, then runs the program. It works, mostly. He finds a bug, an error message. He does not hunt for the flawed line of code. He copies the error and feeds it back to the machine. “Fix this,” he says.
This is “vibe coding.”
A New Way to Build
The term, coined in early 2025, described a new way of working: “fully giving in to the vibes, embracing exponentials, and forgetting that the code even exists.” It stuck, quickly entering the tech lexicon. It defined the practice as letting an AI create a product for you, even if you don’t understand how the code works.
The idea is not entirely new. AI assistants have been helping programmers for years. But vibe coding pushes it further. The AI is not just an assistant; it is a junior developer, taking high-level instructions and producing the work. The human acts as a guide, a tester, a director.
The process is a loop. Describe. Generate. Test. Refine. A developer can build a prototype in an afternoon that once took days. They can hand off routine tasks by simply describing the outcome. The focus is on speed, on getting something functional quickly.
The method has spread with speed. Startups, in particular, have embraced it. Some new companies now build their products with large amounts of AI-generated code. Large firms are experimenting, too, finding it can speed up certain tasks, from building simple games to designing web pages. It has also opened doors for those who cannot code. A designer with no engineering background built a mobile app in two months. A tech columnist created simple tools by typing prompts into an AI. The promise is a democratization of software development, where an idea is enough to get started.
The Price of Speed
But the practice has its critics and its dangers. The central concern is quality. An AI can write code that works, but it can also introduce subtle bugs, security flaws, or inefficiencies. In one experiment, an AI-generated app fabricated fake reviews for a website. In another, the AI wrote code for handling payments with a critical logic flaw.
Debugging this code is a new challenge. “Vibe coding is all fun and games until you have to vibe debug,” one programmer wrote. Fixing a problem is hard when you never fully understood the code in the first place.
Some argue the term itself is misleading. One expert called it “unfortunate,” noting that working with these tools is a “deeply intellectual exercise” that can be exhausting. It demands constant decision-making and verification. It is not a passive surrender to the vibes. It is a new kind of work.
Vibe coding is not yet a replacement for traditional engineering, especially for complex, critical systems. But it is changing the landscape. It shifts the developer’s role from writing code to orchestrating it. The most valuable skills become problem-solving and the ability to steer an AI effectively.
The technology is young. The tools improve weekly. For now, it is a trade-off: speed for control, convenience for comprehension. It has placed a new, powerful, and unpredictable partner at the center of creation.