Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)
Key ideas
Karpathy argues that LLMs are a new kind of computer, programmed in English, and that builders should ship partial-autonomy products and make software readable to agents.
From YouTube’s automatic captions. Quotes link to the moment they are said.
- 1
Software 3.0 is programmed in English
Karpathy sets hand-written code (1.0) and neural-network weights (2.0) next to prompts that program LLMs (3.0). At Tesla he watched neural nets eat through Autopilot's C++, and he expects the new paradigm to eat through software again, so newcomers should be fluent in all three.
- 2
LLMs resemble 1960s operating systems
Karpathy says LLMs look like utilities and chip fabs in some ways but most like operating systems: expensive, centralized in the cloud and time-shared, as computing was in the 1960s. Unusually, they reached consumers first, while governments and corporations lag behind.
- 3
Superhuman, but with cognitive deficits
Karpathy describes LLMs as stochastic simulations of people, with encyclopedic memory but jagged intelligence. They hallucinate, forget everything outside the context window, and fall for prompt injection, so builders have to design around those gaps.
- 4
Build Iron Man suits, not robots
Karpathy favors partial-autonomy apps like Cursor and Perplexity: they manage context, orchestrate models, offer a GUI that makes checking fast, and include an autonomy slider. He urges keeping the AI on a short leash with small, checkable changes, and calls this the decade of agents, not the year.
- 5
Everyone codes; now build for agents
Karpathy says vibe coding made everyone a programmer, but in his own MenuGen app the code was easy and the deployment, auth and payments in the browser took a week. He wants docs and services written for agents: llms.txt, markdown docs, curl commands instead of 'click', and protocols like MCP.
In Andrej’s words
“Your prompts are now programs that program the LLM. And remarkably these prompts are written in English.”
Andrej Karpathy·Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)·Watch at 3:19(opens the original in a new tab)“When I see things like oh 2025 is the year of agents I get very concerned and I kind of feel like you know this is the decade of agents and this is going to be quite some time.”
Andrej Karpathy·Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)·Watch at 27:31(opens the original in a new tab)“It's less Iron Man robots and more Iron Man suits that you want to build. It's less like building flashy demos of autonomous agents and more building partial autonomy products.”
Andrej Karpathy·Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)·Watch at 28:25(opens the original in a new tab)Connected in lessons
About this entry
- Published
- Jun 19, 2025
- Channel
- Y Combinator
- Type
- Video
- Length
- 39:31
- Language
- English
- Added
- Nov 1, 2026
- Source last checked
- Nov 1, 2026
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