The Collins' Word of the Year is a sequel to a previous winner

THE COLLINS’ WORD of the Year has been revealed as ‘vibe coding’, whereby AI is used to try and turn natural language into computer code.

Lexicographers at Collins Dictionary monitor the 24 billion-word Collins Corpus, which draws from a range of media sources including social media, to create the annual list of new and notable words that reflect our ever-evolving language.

They chose vibe coding as Word of the Year after observing a huge increase in usage since its first appearance in February.

In a sign of how quickly these things have moved, it was only two years ago that AI was named as the 2023 Word of the Year.

Vibe coding as a term was popularised by Andrej Karpathy, former Director of AI at Tesla and founding engineer at OpenAI, to describe how AI enables creative output while he could “forget that the code even exists”.

“Basically, telling a machine what you want rather than painstakingly coding it yourself,” is now Collins explains it in this morning’s announcement.

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The dictionary said that tech experts debate whether this is “revolutionary or reckless”, but they said the term has “resonated far beyond Silicon Valley, speaking to a broader cultural shift towards AI-everything in everyday life”.

Other words on the list include “biohacking”, defined as the activity of altering the natural processes of one’s body in an attempt to improve health and longevity.

Another is “clanker”, a derogatory term for computers, robots, or sources of AI, which was popularised by Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

The word went viral on social media and is often used to express people’s frustrations with, and distrust of, AI chatbots and platforms.

The owners of the biggest global technology companies, informally known as tech bros, were dubbed the “broligarchy” after their high-profile attendance at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, with the word also earning a place on the list.

Another is “aura farming” – described as the deliberate cultivation of a distinctive and charismatic persona – essentially the art of looking cool.

The term was previously popular with gamers but reached a much larger audience earlier this year following the widely shared “boat kid” video that started a dance trend popular with celebrities including American football player Travis Kelce.

With reporting by PA

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