It's all over a lot of niche subject areas and industries. Lots of mobile apps that go viral for a bit turn out to be AI coded, and there has been an explosion of vibe-coded software in the retrogaming scene (for mods, recomps, PC ports, ROM hacks, etc).

But there are reasons that well known software isn't being replaced with AI coded alternatives.

First, the network effect is pretty strong here. Even many longtime competitors to things like Photoshop and Office struggle to get noticed, let alone some fly-by-night deal someone coded over a weekend. It's possible these alternatives exist, but you haven't come across them because they haven't blown up online yet.

Secondly, the type of software you mention is incredibly complex, and packed with features that hard to replicate regardless of how you program. An AI written 'alternative' to Photoshop written in a short timespan would be incredibly barebones compared to the real thing, and it's genuinely debatable whether an LLM could structure it in a way that it wouldn't collapse into an unmaintainable ball of mud.

AI just does better with simple tasks and software whos features are well defined, and neither of those things describes the likes of Microsoft Excel.

Not really, no. I'm not particularly motivated right now, but that's just more due to depression and burnout that the effects of AI. I don't tend to use AI for many of my own personal projects, but I also don't see it as something that kills my interest in coding anything either.

It's a great theory, though it doesn't seem as accurate nowadays. Now, even supposedly 'high-end' brands will be low-quality garbage hollowed out by private equity firms or other corporate acquisitions.

We're not in a world where you can necessarily choose between quality at a high price and disposable junk at a low price, we're in a world where you're often choosing between disposable junk at a low price and rebadged junk sold at a premium one.

That's just the middle class disappearing. I'm sure you can still pay experts to get you actual quality with enough money.

Is there a food and drink equivalent to this?

Because my experience is that most popular brands in those industries have really gone downhill, and it'd be lovely to track which ones are even remotely edible anymore.

It really lost something when Chris Coyier stopped writing for it. He just had a way of writing fun and approachable tutorials for this stuff, and the other contributors didn't hit the same style.

(no shade to Geoff Graham, he did good work as well)

I think one look at the flood of vibe-coded projects (like decomps, mods, etc) hitting the retrogaming scene now proves this article wrong already. You literally see a major project blow up in one day, then immediately get 'busted' for AI.

And it's almost certainly hitting other fields too. Games on Steam, mobile apps, websites and web apps, etc.

Busted? I’d think that AI would be a godsend for retro computing, a field always starved for programmer support especially in emulating obscure stuff.

People do it for the pleasure of figuring out obscure stuff. The point is dealing with that old unsupported tech as much as the games themselves.

Yeah, people on HN don't do anything for the pleasure of anything but to be productive and provide value to whoever. So, don't bet on people here understanding this mindset.

The business/money and startup culture is only a part of HN. I'm here because computers are cool and news hits here fast (also the comments can be interesting). I don't care about IPOs, unicorns, celebrities, AI, etc. I like to see the new Asahi Linux updates, Dolphin progress reports, new OpenBSD releases, discussions about vim and emacs or other unix tools, stories of repairing old arcade hardware, that kinda stuff. Some guys on IRC used to post HN links all the time and at some point I became one of them. Perhaps I'm a minority, but I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

It's possible to use AI to help create non-slop. However, almost nobody does.

Exactly! AI is just mirroring the slow death of creativity over the last couple of decades. If you have the willpower to live a more analog life free of creativity-killing digital wasteland-type deathtraps, the creative spark that hits in moments of quiet contemplation can be funneled through the accelerator of AI-assisted coding to create incredible things. Why does no one seem to realize this?

There's a lot of hatred for AI in these communities, to the point half of Twitter/Bluesky/Reddit goes ballistic when they learn the developer used Claude or Codex at some point. Media outlets and influencers are doing the same thing too.

The hatred stems from retrocomputing enthusiasts wanting an escape from modern computing. When someone's having fun with their retrocomputing hobby, they don't want what they see as the worst part of modern computing playing any role in that hobby. They're trying to get away from the hype, but it's inescapable.

Yeah, I think this is a bigger threat, at least for the moment. It's not automated systems causing havoc in themselves, it's hostile actors using tech to have outsized impacts on society.

As you point out, AI lets criminals and hostile regimes get access to a level of technical knowledge that was previously reserved for larger and more well funded organisations and nation states, that required experts with years of experience to understand. Things like drones and missiles are available to people that would otherwise be incapable of building them.

And it's not just limited to that really. Online scams and fraud are arguably easier to set up than ever, given you can use AI to make fake sites for phishing services, write somewhat convincing sounding emails or impersonate the voice of a target's friend or relative to trick someone into sending money.

Plus, any weakness in a system that a sentient AI could theoretically exploit can be exploited by a criminal or hostile regime right now. For all the talk of an AI taking over a weapon system, the bigger threat is a cartel, terrorist group, cult, lone nutcase criminal or dangerous regime doing it.

So media outlets, influencers, etc have something to link to, and a way to promote Twitter by including tweets in their articles.

If it's public, people can link to it and promote the site. If it's not, then either info there doesn't get free publicity or people just screenshot the tweets instead.

They're still pretty limited in what they can achieve military wise, or how much impact they can have in the real world. Don't get me wrong, robotics is getting a lot more advanced, and in future something like a Terminator might actually be plausible.

But at the moment, a robot revolution/uprising using this sort of tech would be easy enough to put down in about 30 minutes. And they don't have the capabilities to provide a chain of logistics that would allow them to set up lots more factories or get more resources.

The logistics side of things is really the tough part. If Skynet hypothetically existed, it'd need the following to cause any damage:

- Locations to build factories that aren't already occupied by other people, companies or uses (or a way to demolish the latter) - The ability to construct such factories without the planning inspectors noticing, the neighbours noticing, the police or military shutting things down, etc. - Equipment to construct robots on an assembly line - Access to electricity, water and other resources - Raw materials used for the machines to build said robots. This usually involves either finding a third party supplier or thirty that would sign off on supplying it without asking too many questions, stealing it from someone else without them stopping you, etc - The ability to deploy said robots in a way that's effective for your goals and won't get them immediately shot down.

It could reuse existing factories if there were enough of them, but it'd need dozens or hundreds to cause any real issues.

Honestly, logistics are the problem with most apocalyptic scenarios like this. And for that matter, most stories with intelligent characters creating wonderous inventions in fiction.

Someone has to supply the materials, and the character or force has to be able to both afford them and not spark an investigation. They have to work with companies and contractors that might get suspicious about what's going on, and somehow stay on the down low while making an outsized impact on reality.

Oh sure, I agree that we're not imminent danger. However, the field is advancing quickly with us getting glimpses of what autonomous agents can do when seeded with a goal function. It is not too difficult to imagine adaptive and flexible goals that enable broad unpredictability and learnt behavior.

Yeah that's a fair point. Best practices and actual practices sadly don't seem to correlate that much in the real world.

As far as security is concerned, things like hospital equipment, traffic control signalling systems, weapons arsenals and bioengineering medical labs should not be connected to the internet and should be designed in such a way that a human is required in the loop at all times. And shouldn't use AI to function in any way.

But yeah, fair point that a lot of organisations will ignore that in favour of "look how easy internet access makes controlling this thing" or "AI is so cool", forgetting how badly it leaves them at the mercy of their enemies (AI or otherwise).