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18 THE EMERGENCE OF THE CITIZEN DEVELOPER The term "vibe coding" was coined by Andrej Karpathy, co- founder of OpenAI, in early 2025 to describe "fully giving in to the vibes" when working with AI coding tools -- describing what you want rather than how to build it, and trusting the AI to handle the implementation details. As Tso explained in his Substack article "The Era of 'Vibe Coding': How to get started," this approach represents a fundamental shift from traditional programming. Tso's journey illustrates the trajectory. In his interview with Artificial Lawyer, he described the turning point. "The firm, through its Microsoft subscription, enabled no-code automation tools like Copilot Studio and Power Automate, so associates could build AI-enabled workflows. I got obsessed and started building not just for myself but for colleagues. Pretty quickly, partners and associates from different offices started sending automation requests every other day. Some of the document-processing tools I built ended up going viral internally and were ultimately adopted by the firm." This is vibe coding in action: the practice of building software applications through conversational interaction with AI assistants. Unlike low-code platforms that constrain users to predefined templates, AI-powered development tools generate actual code that can be customized and integrated into existing systems. As a result, domain experts can translate their deep understanding of legal workflows directly into functioning software without the traditional bottlenecks of vendor evaluation cycles or IT resource allocation.

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