Google Brain founder Andrew Ng says everyone should still learn to code — but not the ‘old way’
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- Andrew Ng urged everyone to learn coding using AI-assisted 'vibe coding' tools.
- AI-powered coding has lowered barriers to coding, he said.
- He joins tech leaders like Nvidia and Klarna CEOs in touting vibe coding tools like Cursor.
Everyone should learn to vibe code, according to Andrew Ng.
"The bar to coding is now lower than it ever has been," Ng said in a talk at Snowflake's "Build" conference on Monday. "People that code, be it CEOs and marketers, recruiters, not just software engineers, will really get more done than ones that don't."
Ng is a Stanford professor and the founder of Google Brain. He now runs several AI-focused businesses.
He added that it is a "wonderful time" for people to build something they're passionate about because they can be done in less time and at costs that are much lower than ever before.
But he suggested using AI-assisted coding, also called "vibe coding."
"Don't code by hand. Don't do the old way," he said.
"Get AI to help you to code," Ng said. "And that will make people in all job functions much more productive and have more fun."
Ng said that computer science majors are seeing an uptick in unemployment because "universities haven't adapted the curricula fast enough for AI coding."
"Even I can't hire enough people that really know AI," he said.
Ng joins a list of tech executives hyping vibe coding tools and how they're making software development more accessible, even for non-tech roles.
Last month, Jensen Huang name-checked three vibe coding startups in his list of six companies that he says will be part of the human-digital workforce revolution.
"Future workforces in enterprise will be a combination of humans and digital humans. Some of them will be OpenAI-based, and some of it would be Harvey-based or Open Evidence or Cursor or Replit or Lovable," the Nvidia CEO said in an interview with Citadel Securities.
In a September podcast, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said AI coding tools like Cursor have helped him build prototypes faster as someone with a non-technical background.
"Rather than disturbing my poor engineers and product people with what is half good ideas and half bad ideas, now I test it myself," he said. "I come say, 'Look, I've actually made this work, this is how it works, what do you think, could we do it this way?'"
In June, Business Insider reported that vibe coding is no longer a nice-to-have skill.
Job listings from Visa, Reddit, DoorDash, and a host of startups showed that the companies explicitly required vibe coding experience or familiarity with AI code generators like Cursor and Bolt.
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