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Many non-tech people are starting to use AI’s coding capabilities to build their own bespoke apps… all without any programming knowledge.
Why It Hits: For as long as coding has been around, software engineering has only been doable by… well… software engineers. With AI giving that capability to anyone who doesn’t have technical knowledge, becoming a developer (granted, a basic one) is now only limited by ideas. That could have a profound impact on Silicon Valley.
Behind the Code: The use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude and no-code AI like Replit and Lovable have led to the rise of “vibe coding.”
- That term was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy, who was on the founding team of OpenAI and was head of AI at Tesla. He posted on X that the coding capabilities of AI have gotten so good that “I barely even touch the keyboard.”
- Many of these systems allow people to simply type what kind of app or website they want to be generated… and the system will do so within minutes. The user can then tweak it with more prompts.
- These programs are getting so good that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says roughly 30% of the company’s code is already written by AI. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that its chatbot’s skill level will likely be that of a “midlevel engineer” by 2026.
The Future: So, what kind of apps are vibe coders making? WSJ highlighted Priya Rose and Irena Wang, who created “BabyTime” — an app that allows young kids to tap on the faces of their family members to call them — using a free version of Claude to build it in an afternoon. There’s also Xavier Maier, who collaborated with a friend to track all the 15,000 trees he’s planted in Canada… an app made in just “a few hours.”
Prediction: Vibe coding could branch off into two equally fascinating directions — the ability for one person to build a billion-dollar startup (although more coding expertise will need to scale the app properly) or the ability for everyday people to have their own apps that help run their unique lives.
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