The definition is at https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 and no that does not match what is in the branch. Systemically migrating a code base using an LLM does not match the defintion of vibe coding.
There's a decent article by Simon Willison that talks about this: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/19/vibe-coding/
> I’m seeing people apply the term “vibe coding” to all forms of code written with the assistance of AI. I think that both dilutes the term and gives a false impression of what’s possible with responsible AI-assisted programming.
You're right, all 750k lines of code added in a single day - definitely reviewed and completely understood.
The dilution of the term is a real problem sometimes.
But pointing your AI at an entire codebase to transpile pretty much entirely by itself? Yeah vibe coding is a fitting term.
Even if you wrote it a small essay on how to Rust. That improves the situation but doesn't change the core autonomy/hope of the task.
Here is the Wiktionary definition for curiosity.
> (programming, neologism) A method of programming in which a developer generates code by repeatedly prompting a large language model.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vibe_coding
Thanks. That helps us know not to take Wiktionary seriously.
This is just a coined term; definitions evolve over time based on usage
Then "vibe coding" is a useless term, if it just means "LLM-assisted coding". We might as well just say "LLM-assisted coding" or "AI coding" or whatever.
As much as I find the word "vibe" generally annoying (in all contexts), I actually really like "vibe coding" as "LLM did everything and I didn't even look at it". It's a succinct, useful way to describe that mode of doing things. Diluting it down to "LLM-assisted coding" makes it useless.
Nah, I'm not big on these "it either matches the way ___ used it or it's useless" binaries. The term is the term, it's recent, and people are using various forms of the others you mentioned. People use it loosely, people use it specifically, this is the way for many colloquial terms, and definitions form around them and expand over time or change.
It sort of surprises me how uptight people are getting about a term that was mentioned on X last year and has since been tossed around to loosely imply that a machine did between zero and all of the work. Just because it doesn't match exactly does not mean it's useless, it maps to a concept, if the details are important and ambiguous, then elaborate.
> Then "vibe coding" is a useless term
You're absolutely right.
All language is "coined terms". The point is that if you dilute the definition of a term, you make the term useless. Evolution of a term isn't done automatically. Correcting terms such as these pushed the evolution in a more useful way. Also, evolution of language is not a magic spell that automatically forgives people on making language mistakes.