Extract from Jack Shepherd’s article “Is ‘Vibe Lawyering’ the Next AI Frontier for Legal? ”
“Vibe coding” is an emerging trend in software development, where experienced software engineers and amateur coders alike can use generative AI tools to write code simply by entering a natural language description.
For instance, users can input a prompt such as “Build a user authentication feature for an e-commerce application,” and the generative AI tool will produce code that can be easily copied and pasted into the application’s main codebase.
As a part-time coder, I have been vibe coding for quite some time. It undoubtedly helps me code more quickly, but when over-used, comes with some negative side effects.
For example, simply copying and pasting code into a code editor often means you have not fully understood the code properly. This has implications when you need to debug the code, because to spot problems, you have to first understand how the code works. You can “vibe debug” code, but this often sends you down rabbit holes and makes the problems worse.
More fundamentally, the less time I spend with code, the less time I am spending learning.
