If AI Can Copy Photoshop, Why Would Anyone Build the Next Figma? (www.vincentschmalbach.com)

A developer named Brandon Thomas recently released a clone of Adobe Photoshop, called PhotoCraft, built using AI tool Claude Opus 5.5, sparking a debate on the future of software development. This "clean-room reimplementation," while still in alpha and not ready for professional use, attracted over 72,000 stars on GitHub shortly after its release. Thomas suggests that AI could democratize software creation, enabling more ideas to be tested and realized. However, this raises concerns about the viability of traditional software companies, especially as Figma, a design tool Adobe attempted to acquire for $20 billion, illustrates the immense effort required to build quality software, a barrier that AI may diminish. The implications are significant for the AI/ML community and software development landscape. If AI can drastically reduce the time and investment needed to replicate existing tools, it could lead to an explosion of new applications and innovations, but risk financial viability for traditional startups. The ease of creating clones raises questions about intellectual property—since AI can replicate tools without needing access to their source code, copyright laws are unprepared for this shift. This may result in fewer lengthy, funded projects like Figma, leading to a landscape filled with faster iterations but potentially less robust long-term investments in software.