{"id":20902,"date":"2026-02-09T23:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T23:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/vibe-coding-inventor-andrej-karpathy-has-a-new-term-for-a-i-coding\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T23:51:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T23:51:28","slug":"vibe-coding-inventor-andrej-karpathy-has-a-new-term-for-a-i-coding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/vibe-coding-inventor-andrej-karpathy-has-a-new-term-for-a-i-coding\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Vibe Coding\u2019 Inventor Andrej Karpathy Has a New Term for A.I. Coding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Andrej Karpathy introduces \u201cagentic engineering,\u201d arguing that directing A.I. agents now defines modern software development. Photo by Michael Macor\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last February, OpenAI co-founder and Tesla Autopilot\u2019s founding engineer,<\/a> Andrej Karpathy<\/a>, accidentally coined a now-ubiquitous\u00a0<\/b>term when he tweeted about \u201cvibe coding.<\/a>\u201d The phrase described a form of A.I.-aided coding that lowered the barrier to entry for software engineering and soon took both hobbyists and Silicon Valley by storm. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of that viral moment, Karpathy has introduced a new, albeit less snappy, phrase: \u201cagentic engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The difference? While vibe coding was mostly for fun and powered by early A.I. coding tools, agentic engineering represents a more advanced phase of software development that is becoming increasingly common in professional settings. The term\u2019s inclusion of \u201cagentic\u201d makes sense because, for the most part, engineers no longer write code directly. Instead, they direct and oversee agents that do, Karpathy said in a recent post on X. And \u201cEngineering\u201d emphasizes \u201cthat there is an art and science and expertise to it<\/a>,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Karpathy said he was taken aback by the buzz his initial vibe coding post generated, calling it a \u201cthrowaway tweet that I just fired off without thinking.\u201d But the researcher\u2019s storied career in the A.I. industry lends his views added credibility. Online searches for the term exploded last year, according to Google Trends, and the phenomenon was featured in countless news articles and think pieces. It was even named Collins Dictionary\u2019s word of the year for 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A member of OpenAI<\/a>\u2019s 11-person founding team, Karpathy focused on generative modeling, computer vision and reinforcement learning at the ChatGPT-maker before leaving for Tesla<\/a> in 2017 to lead its Autopilot efforts. Karpathy returned to OpenAI in 2023, then departed again a year later to launch Eureka Labs, an A.I. education company. Outside of A.I. development, he also has more than 1.2 million followers on YouTube, where he posts educational tutorials.<\/p>\n