Cast your mind back to the early 2000s…

Dating was very different.

For those living pre-iPhone there was no Tinder (2012), Hinge (2013), or Bumble (2014). Primarily desktop-driven apps like OKCupid (2004), eHarmony (2000), and the original, venerable, Match.com (1995) dominated.

Swiping as a fundamental dating U/X didn’t exist yet. Instead people specialized in long-form essays about why they traveled the world with their dog, or answered hundreds of questions about their hobbies, interests, and favorite foods, so they could be matched with their soulmate.

But mostly people felt a great deal of shame doing it all. My god the shame!

The term “Internet dating” was whispered between friends, or told to your family reluctantly after a Thanksgiving grill session. It wasn’t something respectable people did: Going online for dates was seen as a sign of desperation. Couldn’t you just meet someone nice in the real world?

Fast forward to today: The nomenclature has changed (“on the apps”) and the expectation around their use has changed along with them. Apps have become the default dating experience around the modern world. They’ve become so omnipresent, so ubiquitous, they’ve even provoked resentment as people wonder if trusting our collective love lives to corporations was actually a good idea.

As apps have become the dating experience for many singles, the old, niche, specialized term of “Internet dating” has become just… “dating.” App use is implied.

I’ve had the thought recently that “vibe coding” as a term has a very similar trajectory.

“Vibe coding” is supposed to reference coding with an AI. Not just coding with and AI but coding exclusively through an AI. “coding,” meanwhile, as a term, is supposed to denote a human-in-the-loop. Maybe you use an AI somewhat, but the program you produce is still chiefly the product of a human mind. Yours.

But how much longer will that be true?

There was a great article a while ago on Hacker News about how Agentic Coding and vibe coding are becoming worryingly similar. As AI gets better and better at coding, it needs less and less hand holding.

I’m optimistic. I believe there will always be a human in the loop because ultimately AI is just a tool - it needs a human wielding it, with human intent, to actually do work that matters.

But I do believe that all coding will be AI-assisted.

In that future world (which for some of us is already here), what meaning does the term “vibecoding” have anymore? If all coding is AI-assisted won’t it just be referred to as… “coding”?

I believe so. And in that future that greets us, the term will sound just as quaint as “Internet dating” does today.