I disagree, "vibe" characterizes how the LLM is being used, not that AI is being used at all. The vibe part means it's not rigorous. Using an LLM to autocomplete a line in an otherwise traditionally coded project would not be considered "vibe" coding, despite being AI assisted, because the programmer can easily read and verify the line is as correct as if they had typed it character by character.
I don't think you can make an argument the definition is settled based on popular usage when the replies to your comment show there's still plenty of contention about what it means. It hasn't entered the general lexicon yet because most people have never heard it and could only guess at what it means. Not even my students agree on what vibe coding means and they're the ones who do it most. And regardless, terms of art can still have technical meanings distinct from the general lexicon (like "theory", or the example you used "hacker", which means something different around here).
