OpenClaw creator says "vibe coding" is a slur against AI-assisted development

A hot potato: It shouldn't come as a surprise that fans of generative AI are pretty sensitive about the terminology and negativity surrounding it. OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger, for example, says that "vibe coding" is a slur used to make generating AI code sound easy. He added that using AI code editors is akin to learning how to play the guitar.

The term vibe coding is often used when developers rely heavily on AI tools to generate, modify, and refine code. The name comes from steering development by vibes while AI does much of the coding.

OpenClaw, a free AI agent that has been taking the internet by storm, was itself created using AI code editors by Steinberger – its original name of Clawdbot was a reference to Claude Code.

On OpenAI's Builders Unscripted, Steinberger said he doesn't appreciate the use of the phrase vibe coding as it ...