Say I wanted an app , could I just ask AI to write me the software and voila now I have the app for free.
Try it and let us know how it goes.
God, I wish I had your world view…
Vibe coder fanboi went live on youtube when fable came out. Spent $60 in tokens to make a GTA 0.1 clone.
Of course, and this was also true before LLMs. Don’t want to buy MS Word? Just write a word processor.
The only catch is that it’s likely several orders of magnitude more expensive and difficult to write software for personal use (with or without AI) than to purchase it or to use a free alternative.Using AI to write scripts and macros to automate tasks that didn’t worth automated previously, is definitely a thing though. Someone link the xckd which explains the function between time spent on automation and time gained on not having to do the task.
Here you go. XKCD 1319
if source code is available, then chatbot can copy it badly and then gaslight you that clearly broken pile of shit actually works
A new business model for these lying greedy AI companies:
Have every software ready, but put millions of tokens on the bill everytime when someone asks to write it new…
Yeah, costs about $165,000 in tokens, if you’re really smart about it. https://bun.com/blog/bun-in-rust
Absolutely!
Be sure to post later and let us know how it goes.
Not really. Let’s see if we can’t put together an analogy as to why.
When talking about software, the term “source code” comes up a lot. Think of this as a recipe someone would use to make the software. The software itself (for instance, Windows 98) is like the food made from cooking that recipe.
But something like Windows 98 is more like a giant cookbook full of recipes, and all of those recipes are written in a way to make a giant, cohesive meal.
Now, it’s important to realize that Microsoft has never released any of those recipes. And in the same way that you could make a copycat version of your favorite restaurant’s specialty, you could have AI give you a copycat recipe for some software.
But while you might be able to get close, your computer is a very picky gourmand. The little differences matter a lot, especially when you start trying to use things that were designed to work with the “real” version.
Another important thing most other people have already identified is what the AI can actually do. By default, most AI like ChatGPT is just a chatbot. It can talk to you, but not much else. So, you can ask you to give you a copycat recipe for some software and it will give you one, it’ll just be the recipe. You’ll have to do the “cooking” yourself.
They do now make what are called “agentic” AI’s that can do the “cooking” for you. But again, they would be working off the copycat recipe that the normal AI came up with, which is going to be a little bit (but importantly) wrong at the outset. Especially for something as big and connected as Windows. And the agentic AI’s aren’t free to use like the chatbot ones. In fact, they’re very expensive.
So, all that to say, it would be very difficult if not impossible to do what you are asking via AI.
Here is someone’s experience getting ai to make a copy of notepad: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bmBd39OwvWg
No, the IP is still protected. You are then entering territory where you may quickly get sued (sure , that always depends whether the other party has enough money or interest to sue you; but IP has a lot to do with ethics as well; do you really want to STEAL from other people, are you willing to stoop down to the level of a burglar or worse, how would you feel if that IP would have been yours etc etc.)
But that would only be a problem if OP wanted to sell the result.
Only using the stuff himself, as he stated, should be totally fine.
And the point is exactly, that doesn’t steal (at least if you for a moment don’t regard based on what LLMs are trained…), but use something different instead.Nope, incorrect. - Personal Use ≠ Fair Use: While some jurisdictions have “fair use” or “fair dealing” exceptions (e.g., for criticism, education, or parody), personal use alone does not automatically qualify as fair use! In this case, the person that takes the IP, is using it for its own purposes, and that is stealing, It is like me taking your bike, and using it for my own transportation, Without selling it to somebody else.
It is like me taking your bike, and using it for my own transportation
No, OP’s example is not.
Rather it’s like you having seen me riding a bike and based on that building a two-wheeled device behaving in a similar way for yourself.Good luck, you will find enlightenment I’m sure. I have been involved in IP litigation for about 30 years in industry, and a lot of colleagues argued the way you guys are doing, it didn’t end well ;-)
in industry
I think, that is the important point here.
A private person letting Claude Code generate a spreadsheet behaving like Excel that they then uses to categorize their tea bag collection, is as far from any “industry” as possible.But even if a Company is doing it… Say, they wrote their own chat app that behaves like MS Teams and use it internally… What are the potential allegations Microsoft could raise?
(One additional info: I’m an European, while your use of the legal term “fair use” tells me that you are likely from the US - in Europe there is no way to patent “business processes” like the behaviour of an interface…)
To further stretch that metaphor, it’s like I manufacture bikes, and you copy one of my designs to build a single unit for yourself.
Also, I imagine it would be hard to discover and then prove that the app someone is using on their own machine is a clone of yours.
Also also, the validity of software patents heavily depends on your jurisdiction.
Also also also, there’s a lot of word processors and photo editors out there. The usecase of an app would have to be incredibly specific to even try and prove a clone is infringing on anything. If it’s a library - reinplementing a function in your own (or a LLM’s) code is unlikely to be a problem.
I don’t trust current LLMs to do this well, or in an affordable way, but if you somehow manage it, I don’t think the original manufacturer would have an easy time sueing you.
I fully agree with all your points. IP and patent infringement is intriguing and sometimes dangerous territory, which shouldn’t be taken lightly.
None of the agentic AIs are free to use, so you’d have to pay for a subscription. You can run a self-hosted model, but they arent free either, and are a lot more limited.
Small and basic apps, you can easily replace. More complex ones, not yet.
I really liked windows 98.
Could it recreate that for me?
Idk about 98 but XP source is available. If you’re so dismissive of copyright, just compile it without the license check and don’t waste energy on AI.
No, and if you really want that ReactOS exists.
Maybe window RG.
Try it out and see how well it works
I barely even use email.
I don’t have any chatgpt or any of those
Then to answer our question. No you can’t.
ChatGPT is free. Try it, then come back and we’ll make fun of you.
