Anyone can use AI chatbots to 'vibe code.' Could that put programmers out of a job?

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Anyone can use AI chatbots to 'vibe code.' Could that put programmers out of a job?

NPR
John Ruwitch
May 30, 2025



Chloe Samaha wasn't trained to write software. But she and her partner at their San Francisco-based startup BOND got a working version of a new online productivity manager and website up and running in less than a day.

"He was on his way back from a ski trip and built the entire back end … in six hours. And I built the front end in, like, an hour-and-a-half, and we just had a functional product," Samaha said.

They did it mostly by "vibe coding" — using fast-evolving artificial intelligence chatbots, as well as other new AI tools, to write the software for them.

It helped Samaha go from a concept for what she calls "an AI chief of staff for CEOs and busy execs" to a prototype and then a product on the market with lightning speed.

It also highlights advances in AI that are opening up possibilities for creators and shaking up the world of software engineering.

Samaha, 21, said BOND's product, called "Donna" (named after a character on the TV series Suits), taps into users' data from various platforms, like email, calendars or Slack, and uses AI to give instant answers to questions about things like progress on projects and team performance.

The firm recently got a $500,000 investment from the venture capital firm and tech incubator Y Combinator.

Tom Blomfield is a group partner there. He said the term "vibe coding" was coined by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy earlier this year in a tweet.

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https://www.npr.org/2025/05/30/nx-s1-5413387/vibe-coding-ai-software-development