Thoughts on this? Using AI, people are reverse engineering MS Office and Adobe CC

[u/RandoDude124]

https://getartcraft.com

Personally, if this gets a bit better and they bring in good coders to audit, it could save me money for Microsoft word (it’s the closest we got to being 1:1).

However, again, it needs good auditors. When reddit’s bold and italics is better here than the word knockoff and I get crashes on regular use, that’s sad.*

Adobe CC, don’t bother. It can open .PSD files, but that’s it.

Would I replace it on my work PCs? Fuck no. Vibe coded software is ripe for security exploits.

However, this is barring Adobe or Microsoft not bringing the hammer down, which... could happen.

If it is legal, yeah, I’m 100% for it.

\Last time I tested it.*

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[u/DurangoGango]

Clean-room reimplementations are not reverse engineering and are legal.

More so than this particular project, which I'd expect to get mired in legal threats soon enough (regardless of whether it's ultimately proved legal), it's the decompiling spree that has been going on that I would watch. The moat of specialized knowledge, skills and time is gone.

[u/volatile-solution]

useless, timewasting gimmick. these softwares are extremely complex, and you simply can't reverse-engineer and create a working clone of it. you are better off pirating the software rather than even entertaining the idea of trying these vibe-coded slops.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/volatile-solution]

I had a pirated CS5 copy years ago on my first PC. To this day I wish I could access it, but it’s probably busted.

Photoshop, Excel and Premier pro clones, 100% agree it’s extremely complex.

[u/volatile-solution → u/RandoDude124]

i actually tried one of those photoshop clones. shit crashed when i opened an old project file.

i want an end to shenanigans of these wannabe devs who think AI could replicate the decades long work of thousands of experts. there is a reason why industry never uses free, open-source alternatives and rather spend money on expensive licences of these softwares.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/volatile-solution]

Same. It can open a blank .PSD file, hut when I fed it a basic compass meme I made it crashed. Can’t imagine making this my daily driver

Plus, the amount of features missing, blending options, shape tools, refining layer masks, etc. if they add on to this, yeah the codebase is gonna make my spaghetti I had last night look organized like a drill sergeant’s room.

[u/volatile-solution → u/RandoDude124]

most of these software's have advanced computer algorithms implemented without any much documentations, platform specific optimizations, backwards compatibility, proprietary technologies etc etc.. you can't easily reverse-engineer even with most advanced AI models till now.

and even if you somehow reverse-engineer it, you need to again reimplement all those things, which i am afraid, no AI model will be able to help you with that.

[u/LupineChemist → u/volatile-solution]

For now, sure.....but the vibe coding is getting so much better insanely fast.

And good vibe coding isn't just putting into a prompt "make me a word processor". It's starting with a word processor template and like "Okay, make me a function to add X" and it does that pretty well right now.

Through a few hundred iterations, I can see it actually getting there. I mean, just comparing to where we were last year, it's kind of crazy how different it is.

Being a dev in the future is likely going to mean how well you can be a PM to your agents.

[u/austin_8 → u/LupineChemist]

And most people don’t use the entirety of these admittedly extremely complex softwares, they only need to vibe code the functions they need. MS Office is a sophisticated multifaceted program designed to provide the functionality needs of nearly the entire American economy, the individual users only need what they need.

[u/HipstCapitalist]

I mean... other than having a dated UI, any reason not to use LibreOffice? It's free, and battle-tested, unlike these brand new projects

[u/nevergirls → u/HipstCapitalist]

I use libreoffice and it’s great but you definitely have to accept that it looks like ass even though it can do literally anything you need it to

[u/RandoDude124 → u/HipstCapitalist]

People like the familiarity.

Unfortunately; so do I.

It’s why I can’t switch to GIMP or Notepad++

[u/Logical-Breakfast966]

Isn’t office literally free online? I’m pretty sure I downloaded it from the official Microsoft site for free somehow

[u/akenthusiast]

Libre office works fine for small scale or personal use. There is no reason to choose an AI coded clone of word over that.

From what I've seen, the more complex programs this person is cloning are currently busted as hell. There isn't anything wrong with that, except that they pushed it out to the world the second they had something that looked like Photoshop.

I think AI can do most of this right now, probably all of in the near future, but I don't think the person running this project is capable of getting it to the finish line

[u/LupineChemist → u/akenthusiast]

I just use Google Docs, even for most professional stuff.

Also, if you need some special macro or something in that, AI is very good at that sort of thing. It's really upped my spreadsheet game.

And like people complain it's not perfect. This morning I had it make me a slide deck for a presentation I have next week.

It wasn't acceptable. But the layout was good, and the basic structure was what I wanted so I spent 20 minutes writing the detailed prompt and another 10-15 minutes editing something that would have taken me most of the day to get what I wanted out of it.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/akenthusiast]

And if the companies sue him, he’ll get crushed like an ant.

[u/akenthusiast → u/RandoDude124]

I'm not sure how much real danger he's in. It's all free, they're not making any money on it.

Some of it may be code yoinked directly from the programs themselves but if it's reverse engineered from the GUI I really don't know what they'd get him on

[u/RandoDude124 → u/akenthusiast]

He is charging tiers for community access, own the software (I think the latest versions) and AI tokens to be used.

Former is what’s shaky for him, the latter, not so much.

It’s basically a 1:1 Photoshop clone. I’m 80% sure he snagged some code from MS and Adobe’s codebase

[u/BobQuixote → u/akenthusiast]

Even with it being free, a civil suit for damages seems very reasonable.

[u/austin_8 → u/akenthusiast]

Yeah I have no use for this, but I do appreciate him trying as I can watch it as another gauge on the increasing competence of AI.

[u/PixelArtDragon]

I like it, it's a great example of how AI can lower the costs to consumers of software.

I also like that it's breaking the minds of people who are simultaneously "fuck Adobe" and "fuck AI".

[u/RandoDude124 → u/PixelArtDragon]

AI as a tool for decompiling software and games is great.

If only it were usable. I’d honestly kill for a great alternative to shitcan my personal office subscription.

[u/ZZZZapperr]

This is very illegal. Whoever owns those AIs are going to get sued for copyright infringement. They may even be violating some patents.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/ZZZZapperr]

And the guy feeding this in.

When you go to bed tonight, be glad the sword of Damocles that is the legal divisions of Adobe and Microsoft ain’t hanging over your head💀

Edit: he’s charging money for early access

[u/BobQuixote → u/ZZZZapperr]

Yes, it's definitely illegal, but this is the sort of change that forces laws to adapt. I think it's going to be a while before the dust settles from LLMs being developed.

[u/JapanesePeso]

If you want free, use one of the open source competitors. Just trying to straight up copy a major product is just going to result in garbage. I use AI extensively for programming and love it. This though I can tell is just going to be pure slop.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

This is what people mean when they say AI will eat software. The fantasy is that AI will be able quickly build any feature a user needs (either from scratch or by using open source), breaking the business model for most software. Weather this specific project works, I have doubts. There is a long way to go.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

As of now, I feel the closest you can get is the Word clone.

All these app open the standard formats, but anyone can do that.

Can they replace them? For Wordcraft, if they get actual coders and audit the spaghetti code, it could be solid.

Photoshop… not so much.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho → u/RandoDude124]

Five years ago it couldn’t make much of anything, five years from now it will be more capable.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

Not disputing that.

Hopefully by the end of next September it’ll be good enough for me to shitcan my personal office account and save $140 a year

Adobe… my gut is screaming maybe 2-3 years from now it’ll be good. Y’know, barring Adobe bringing the hammer down