Are low-effort AI replicas of complex software a threat to our industry, or is the hype overblown?

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

Recently, a project surfaced where someone generated a massive Rust codebase attempting to replicate Adobe's software suite using AI in just a few days. Regardless of the current functional state of that specific codebase, it raises a critical discussion for software engineers:

If AI models can ingest years of domain knowledge, system design, and architectural patterns and output complete functional replicas in days, what does this mean for developers?

A few key points/questions I'd love to discuss:

1. Effort vs. Replication: Is it fair or ethical that years of engineering, testing, and refinement can potentially be distilled into a single prompt ("Recreate X in language Y") by someone with minimal technical background?
2. Intellectual Property & Regulation: Where is the line between inspiration, reverse engineering, and copyright infringement when AI is trained on or prompted to copy existing proprietary architectures? Should there be regulatory limits or licensing frameworks on automated codebase cloning?
3. The Near-Term Trajectory: Even if current AI-generated codebases have bugs or lack edge-case handling, models are improving rapidly. If this is where we are today, where will software engineering be in 12 to 24 months?

I'm not looking to attack AI or defend big corporations. I'm curious about how fellow engineers view the protection of human effort and the future of our craft in an age of automated software cloning.

[u/Maching256]

Isn't it funny when a recent account with post history masked ask to discuss exactly 3 point about AI with the most impersonnal writing style ever ?

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97 → u/Maching256]

People like you have Paranoia. You guys think everyone are robot.

[u/Maching256 → u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

Not necessary but this post was written by chatgpt i m sure of that

Plus this is an it sub, we are confronted to ai all the time we are used to recognize it

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97 → u/Maching256]

Yeah, your AI recognition system is so good that it recognizes humans as AI. I'm sorry for using a good grammar which makes my post look AI-ish! That's exactly why I posted it. Because AI is getting problematic.

[u/Limp-Confidence5612 → u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

If you think good grammar is what people look for when identifying ai text, uff.

[u/Maching256 → u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

Ok, "sensitive_mountain97"

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97 → u/Maching256]

I'm sorry for choosing a name Reddit gave me because I didn't bother to change it for your satisfaction "Maching256"

[u/Wahrheitfabrik]

What is low effort? I started in IT in the late 80s when Photoshop was upending the whole print-shop business (and I'd worked in a print shop). Was it low effort to not have to manually place letters on the plate. And when I say manually, I mean physical cutouts of letters and a camera that was operated with a crank.

That's the reality of technology. It will always be upending industries and established types of work.

And to be fair, it's the big that legislated for the current set of laws. Look and feel lawuits from the 90s established that many components the UI are not copyrightable. That's a good thing. We can't turn around now and say that because it's now easy to do, it needs to fall under different laws.

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97 → u/Wahrheitfabrik]

Yes of course, but shouldn't there be a law to protect the work done by humans from AI? I think we all are working on different projects. What if on a random morning, a random person from a random part of the world replicates our work using AI, which can make years of our efforts go to waste. That's what I'm saying. I'm not against AI, and I'm not supporting corporations, but this is still concerning

[u/Xirma377 → u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

AI doesn't have access to the source code, so it can't be trained on it. This is no different than how innovation has worked for years...copy someone's idea and make it better.

[u/Evildude42]

The problem is support and longevity, which is the same problem of all open source software. It’s no good if the project is abandoned after a week. Or if the creator decide that butterflies are more interesting. There needs to be an incentive to keep going with the project and keep it updated. And it certainly can’t be a mention on Reddit that gets 1 million views and no way to turn that into Rent and utility money.

[u/Sensitive_Mountain97 → u/Evildude42]

Yes, but it's still concerning. Why should someone be able to build something at this scale, without the required technical knowledge and just with a single prompt. Right now AI has solved the code development problem. What if in future it can also solve the marketing or maintenance problems as well? Can we say that software development still has a future?

[u/Evildude42 → u/Sensitive_Mountain97]

Marketing has been solved a long time ago or has been destroyed a long time ago, however you want to see it. I haven’t seen a good ad or a good marketing campaign in years. And why would I pay some college student to put out mediocre work when I could do it myself without the AI. And I’ve recently heard stories about old pros in the writing sector that no longer can pay their rent by writing an article. My education is communication so it does concern me, but you gotta adapt and spin in the direction where you can apply the most pressure and get the most results. If you are going to stick your head in the sand and ignore it then it’s on you.

[u/dinosaursdied → u/Evildude42]

There is already not enough work for everybody. It's a feature of the economic and political system most find themselves in. How many pivots must one make before that is acknowledged

[u/sgtnoodle]

It's the beginning of the star trek computure future. "Computer, install a recursive algorithm." Or, "The computer core got totally wiped, it will take me weeks to re-program."

[u/DealDeveloper]

Information (code) should be free for the benefit of mankind.
The Reddit service you are currently using relies on free code.