Vibe coding is a slur, and skilled AI-assisted development should instead be called agentic engineering, with 'vibe coding' reserved for sloppy late-night sessions.
Peter argues that 'vibe coding' is a derogatory term and prefers 'agentic engineering' for his disciplined work, reserving 'vibe coding' for late-night, low-rigor sessions he regrets the next day. ✦ AI generated
Peter Steinberger · Lex Fridman · 2026-02-12 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 64:55
“You prefer agentic engineering?”
I actually think wipe coding is a slur. Yeah, I always tell people I'd- I do agentic engineering, and then maybe after 3:00 AM, I switch to wipe coding, and then I have regrets on the next day.
verbatim transcript · starts at 64:55
65:01- You prefer agentic engineering? - Yeah, I always tell people I, I do agentic engineering, and then maybe after 3:00 AM I switch to vibe coding, and then I have regrets on the next day. - Yeah. Walk, walk of shame. - Yeah, you just have to clean up and like fix your sh- shit. - We've all been there. - So, people start trying out those tools, the builder
65:22type get really excited. And then you have to play with it, right? It's the same way as you have to play with a guitar before you can make good music. It's, it's not, oh, I, I touch it once and it just flows off. It, it's a, it's a, a skill that you have to learn like any other skill. And I see a lot of people that are not as
65:48posi- They don't have such a positive mindset towards the tech. They try it once. It's like, you sit me on a piano, I play it once, and it doesn't sound good, and I say, "The piano's shit." That's, that's sometimes the impression I get. Because it does not... It needs a different level of thinking. You have to learn the language of the agent a little bit, understand where they are
66:13good and where they need help. You have to almost... Consider, consider how Codex or Claude sees your code base. Like, they start a new session and they know nothing about your product, project. And your project might have hundred thousand of lines of code. So you gotta help those agents a little bit and keep in mind the limitations that context size is an issue, to, like, guide them a little bit as to
66:42where they should look. That often does not require a whole lot of work. But it's helpful to think a little bit about their perspective. - Mm-hmm. - A- as, as weird as it sounds. I mean, it's not, it's not alive or anything, right? But, but they always start fresh. I have, I have the, the system understanding. So with a few pointers, I can immediately say, "Hey, wanna like, make a