Vibe Coding: Revolution or Regression Students and Non-coders?

Good Morning,

As the vibe coding interface takes shape, I’ve been checking out a new startup coming out of stealth this week and today’s sponsor, called App20X.

?? In partnership with App20x ??

Build AI apps with just simple prompts

App20X allows creators with no coding skills to build AI business apps in minutes and monetize them as SaaS. It offers seamless built-in integrations with 20+ AI models and 200+ business tools. All tech is managed, requiring no technical skills.

Learn More.

As a non-coder I’m not generally someone that spends a great deal of time tinkering, I wanted to ask someone who is in touch with the early adopters like students.

Nick Potkalitsky, PhD writes the Newsletter Educating AI.

• To read my full work, for less than $2 week subscribe here.

“Work is changing, and we're only beginning to understand how. What's clear from these experiments is that the relationship between human expertise and AI capabilities isn't fixed.” - Ethan Mollick.

How will students and unemployed youth begin to interact with the vibe coding interfaces? ?? 2025 might mark a shift of the AI-human interface from chatbots to dumbed down IDEs, that is, vibe coding Integrated Development Environments (IDE). From AI improving at coding to Claude wrappers, we need to watch this space.

What are the Top vibe coding AI tools, IDEs and Claude Wrappers?

• Cursor
• Loveable
• Bolt
• Replit
• Claude Code
• Manus AI

“Most code will be written (generated?) by the time rich. Thus, most code will be written by kids/students rather than software engineers.” - Andrew Chen, a16z

Will this mean GenZ and Alpha will be more likely to build products via AI in the decade ahead and become self-employed in the process?

Additional AI Vibe Coding Tools

Depending on what you want to do, these tools can help.

• App20X (Sponsor)
• Cline
• vO
• Aider
• Rosebud AI
• a0.dev
• Appacella

Imprecise Language Based Iterative Vibe Coding

“While vibe coding, if an error occurs, you feed it back into the AI model, accept the changes, hope it works, and repeat the process. Karpathy's technique stands in stark contrast to traditional software development best practices, which typically emphasize careful planning, testing, and understanding of implementation details.” - Benji Edwards, ArsTechnica

For experiments and low-stake projects where you want to explore what's possible and build fun prototypes? Go wild! Says Simon.

• But will Vibe coding move beyond fun into general utility?
• Is Generative AI becoming so convenient, the effort it takes for students to learn software engineering and real coding going to be detrimental to them? The work of
• This is what Educators like Nick and skeptics and more critical analysts like me think about.

This post is made free thanks to this startups coming out of Stealth this week:

?? In partnership with App20x ??

Build AI apps with just simple prompts

App20X allows creators with no coding skills to build AI business apps in minutes and monetize them as SaaS. It offers seamless built-in integrations with 20+ AI models and 200+ business tools. All tech is managed, requiring no technical skills.

Learn More

Vibe Coding or Vibe Prompting?

“I would call this new revolution "vibeprompting"—the art of breaking complex requests into well-structured prompts, knowing what context is needed to build an app and how granular the tasks should be broken.

• The true relationship between AI literacy and prompting experience might be a significant factor in how successful a user is at Vibe coding, at least without access to guidance. Increasingly AI is implicated in the prompting process too, so does that mean that chatbot AI literacy becomes obsolete?

It’s fun to think about.

Nick Potkalitsky, PhD of the Newsletter Educating AI is really on a roll recently:

New Vibes: ? new by Nick

• Does AI Kill Critical Thinking? Maybe Not If We Use It Right.
• Transactional vs. Conversational Visions of Generative AI in Teaching
• The Five Faces of Education in the Age of AI: A Spectrum of Survival, Skepticism, and Symbiosis

Let’s get to the deep dive:

Vibe Coding: Revolution or Regression for Tomorrow's Tech Minds?

By Nick Potkalitsky. March, 2025.

Gen Z, Alpha, and the Vibe Coding Zeitgeist

"Vibe coding"—a term coined by AI luminary Andrej Karpathy in early 2025—has emerged as a phenomenon that perfectly aligns with the unique characteristics of Generations Z and Alpha.

These digital natives—born into a world where creation and consumption are perpetually intertwined—possess three traits that make vibe coding particularly resonant with their approach to learning and work:

Entrepreneurial DNA and Side-Hustle Culture Gen Z has been dubbed the entrepreneurial generation, with 93% reporting they have started or intend to start their own business. For these budding entrepreneurs, vibe coding removes technical barriers that once made software creation the exclusive domain of specialists. As one of my former students recently remarked to me: "I don't need a technical co-founder anymore. I can be both the visionary and the builder."

The Creator Economy Mindset Having grown up in the creator economy, Gen Z and Alpha instinctively approach technology as a means of expression and value creation. Vibe coding extends this creator mindset from content to functional tools. Just as these generations seamlessly move between creating TikTok videos and YouTube tutorials, they now flow between content creation and software development. The boundaries between consumer, creator, and developer are blurring in ways perfectly suited to generations that never recognized these distinctions in the first place.

Tutorial-Based, Just-in-Time Learning Younger generations have perfected the art of tutorial-based, just-in-time learning. Rather than pursuing comprehensive education, they acquire specific skills at the moment they're needed. Vibe coding extends this learning model to software development—allowing them to learn exactly what they need through conversation with AI rather than traditional documentation.

What Exactly Is This "Vibe"?

Vibe coding represents the tantalizing proposition that anyone can create software by simply describing what they want. No more late-night debugging sessions. No more arcane syntax errors. Just a conversation with an AI assistant that translates human intention into functional code.

"I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works," Karpathy explained in his viral post that garnered over 4 million views. The process unfolds like a conversation rather than a construction project: describe your vision, review what the AI generates, refine through dialogue, and deploy the finished product.

Gone are the days of painstakingly building digital structures brick by virtual brick. Instead, students sketch their vision and watch as AI constructs it before their eyes. It's less coding and more... vibing.

This process redefines traditional coding:

1. Articulate: Describe the desired outcome (e.g., “An interactive quiz app themed around music eras”).
2. Generate: AI produces functional code snippets.
3. Refine: Iterate through conversational feedback (“Add progress tracking for users”).
4. Deploy: Launch the polished product.

This workflow replaces weeks of trial-and-error debugging with rapid ideation, mirroring the agile, iterative processes Gen Z prefers.

The Democratization Dividend

The most immediate benefit of vibe coding is its radical democratization of software creation. The traditional gatekeepers—syntax knowledge, debugging skills, and years of technical experience—have been dismissed, opening creative floodgates across disciplines.

A history major can create an interactive visualization of the Roman Empire without wrestling with JavaScript. A nursing student can develop a patient education app without deciphering Python documentation. The walls between technical and non-technical domains are crumbling, brick by binary brick.

This cross-pollination of domain expertise with newfound creative capabilities creates fertile ground for innovation. When technical barriers fall, the diversity of problems being solved expands exponentially.

Vibe coding also accelerates the learning process to hyperspeed. Students can create, test, and refine applications in hours rather than weeks. This compression of the feedback loop transforms learning from a marathon into a series of sprints, allowing for more experimentation and growth.

A Few Storm Clouds on the Horizon

Despite these benefits, educators have legitimate concerns about potential knowledge gaps developing in students who rely too heavily on vibe coding:

Core Skills Erosion When AI handles the heavy lifting of syntax and implementation, students may never develop the deep understanding of programming fundamentals that enables truly innovative solutions. Concepts like memory management and computational complexity—the very building blocks of efficient software—remain shrouded in the black box of AI-generated code.

Security Vulnerabilities and Quality Blind Spots AI-generated code, while functional, often lacks the security considerations and optimization that come from experienced developers. Students relying primarily on vibe coding may unknowingly create applications riddled with security vulnerabilities or performance bottlenecks. You might get a working application, but is it a good application?

The AI Dependence Trap Perhaps most concerning is the potential development of over-dependence on AI assistance. Students who rely exclusively on vibe coding may find themselves adrift when faced with situations where these tools are unavailable or insufficient, limiting their adaptability in a field defined by constant change.

Emerging Career Opportunities

As vibe coding transforms education, it's creating new career paths:

The AI-Human Interface Specialist New roles are emerging at the interface between human intent and AI implementation, requiring strong communication skills, domain knowledge, and the ability to direct AI systems effectively. Students who excel at articulating requirements and evaluating AI-generated solutions may find exciting opportunities in these emerging positions.

The Paradoxical Premium on Deep Expertise As basic coding becomes more accessible, deeper technical expertise becomes paradoxically more valuable. Students who develop advanced skills in areas that remain challenging for AI—such as systems architecture, security, and performance optimization—may find themselves highly sought after in a bifurcated job market.

Domain-Specific Creators The accessibility of vibe coding is accelerating the integration of software development with domain expertise. Students who combine knowledge in fields like healthcare or finance with vibe coding skills can create specialized applications addressing niche needs—highlighting the value of interdisciplinary education.

The Call to Vibe Responsibly

The question isn't whether vibe coding will transform education—it already has. The question is whether we can harness its democratizing potential while ensuring students develop the critical thinking and technical discernment to use these tools effectively.

Educational institutions must reimagine curricula that embrace these tools while equipping students with both technical foundations and the judgment to know when AI assistance is appropriate and when deeper understanding is necessary. This balance might include hybrid learning models where students first build with AI, then deconstruct the generated code to understand its underlying principles.

Perhaps the most valuable skill we can impart isn't coding itself, but rather the wisdom to know when to "vibe" and when to dig deeper. That balance—between creative flow and technical understanding—may ultimately determine which students thrive in this new landscape.

As a computer science teacher recently remarked at one of my AI Literacy trainings: "We're not just teaching students to code anymore. We're also teaching them to collaborate with AI that codes." In that shift lies both unprecedented opportunity and substantial responsibility. The time to establish thoughtful approaches to this revolution is now—before an entire generation learns to vibe without understanding the code beneath their digital creations.

Editor’s Last Words

"We're not just teaching students to code anymore. We're also teaching them to collaborate with AI that codes."

• Think about it: ??

Is Coding Supremacy going to the AIs in 2026?

Dario Amodei, the CEO and cofounder of Anthropic, has made significant claims regarding the future role of AI in software development. He predicts that within the next three to six months, AI technology will be responsible for writing approximately 90% of all code in just three to six months.

If he’s right it’s soon going to be a very different world by 2026. All respect to Claude Code but it’s possible Anthropic’s predictions and promises are a bit overblown. Follow our Vibe coding section for more insights on this trend.

It’s clear code is the key. But what will be the vibe, interface and winners & losers is still not entirely clear.