Vibe Coding: Is It Right For Data Science?

Join us for a casual exploration of "vibe coding." Is this approach suitable for the rigorous demands of data science? Maybe. Let's explore the pros and cons together!
In this talk, we'll:

• Walk through the history of vibe coding/programming with AI — from early chatbots to today's nearly-fully-autonomous agents
• Demonstrate Code Puppy, an AI code agent that responds to natural language prompts with a vibe-based approach to problem-solving
• Do a live exploratory data analysis (EDA) with iPuppy-Notebooks, a Jupyter-like notebook integrated with a "Puppy Scientist" agent that will analyze datasets in real time
• I'll even attempt analysis on a dataset provided by an audience member, provided it can fit on my janky laptop!
• Discuss the weird state of the tech world and how to navigate our changing career landscape together
• Share strong opinions (that I hold weakly!) and encourage you to do the same

Come for the AI puppies, stay for the nerdy discussion!

About our speaker:

Michael Pfaffenberger is a Charlottesville-based father of two who currently works for Walmart as an AI Engineer (and part-time backup door greeter). He has spent 15 years deploying AI and ML models into production systems across several different industries. He's also a bit of a computer graphics nerd and is currently enjoying agentic AI.