Andrej Karpathy on Vibe Coding & Agentic Engineering (AI Ascent 2026)

Professional use of coding agents still requires someone to stand behind the software. Andrej Karpathy makes that responsibility central to the distinction between vibe coding and agentic engineering in this interview. Vibe coding expands who can make software; agentic engineering asks how professionals can work faster while preserving their standards for quality and security.

Karpathy describes agents as powerful but uneven and fallible. Coordinating them therefore includes deciding how to check their work. The suggested hiring exercise reflects that emphasis: have a candidate build a substantial application, then test whether other agents can break it. In that proposal, the criterion becomes the behavior of the resulting system, alongside the ability to direct its construction.

“you can outsource your thinking, but you can't outsource your understanding”

Andrej Karpathy

“vibe coding is about raising the floor for everyone in terms of what they can do in software”

Andrej Karpathy

“state-of-the-art models today will tell you to walk because it's so close”

Andrej Karpathy

“Why are people still telling me what to do? Like I don't want to do anything. What is the thing I should copy paste to my agent?”

Andrej Karpathy

“if you're in the circuits that were part of the RL, you fly and if you're in the circuits that are out of the data distribution, you're going to struggle”

Andrej Karpathy