Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

I think we're going to see a similar backlash to AI apps as we did with AI art.

Not necessarily because users can identify AI apps, but more because due to the lower barrier of entry - the space is going to get hyper-competitive and it'll be VERY difficult to distinguish your app from the hundreds of nearly identical other ones.

Another thing that worries me (because software devs in particular seem to take a very loose moral approach to plagiarism and basic human decency) is that it'll be significantly easier for a less scrupulous dev to find an app that they like, and use an LLM to instantly spin up a copy of it.

I'm trying not to be all gloom and doom about GenAI, because it can be really nifty to see it generate a bunch of boilerplate (YAML configs, dev opsy stuff, etc.) but sometimes it's hard....

No doubt about it, things will get very competitive in the software space and while anyone will be able to use generative AI tools, I think more will be expected for less.

Reminds me of when OpenAI rolled out custom GPTs, and in a matter of a few months there were more than a million of them on the store.

People don't seem to realize that the same thing is going to happen to regular app development once AI tooling gets even easier.

I hope not. I commend that software devs in particular seem to be adaptable to new technologies instead of trying to stop progress.

Take this very post for example. Imagine an artist forum having daily front-page articles on AI, and most of the comments are curious and non-negative. That's basically what HackerNews is doing, but with developers instead. The huge culture difference is curious, and makes me happy with the posters on this site.

You attribute it to the difficulty of using AI coding tools. But such tools to cut out the programmer and make it available to the layman has always existed: libraries, game engines, website builders, and now web app builders. You also attribute it to the flooding of the markets. But the website and mobile markets are famously saturated, and yet there we continue making stuff, because we want to (and because quality things make more money).

I instead attribute it to our culture of free sharing (what one might call "plagiarism"... of ideas?!), adaptability, and curiosity. And that makes me hopeful.