Figma Takes Down AI App Design Feature After Spawning Apple Comparisons
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Things aren’t sunny for now at Figma, which has hit pause on its recently launched artificial intelligence feature, ‘Make Design’, over allegations of copying and pasting Apple’s Weather app design.
The tool, designed to generate UI layouts and components from mere text prompts, purportedly produced designs strikingly similar to Apple’s app on repeat. This tendency to replicate was first identified by Andy Allen, founder of NotBoring Software, who shared side-by-side comparisons of the Cupertino tech giant’s Weather app versus drafts generated by Make Design.
Figma AI looks rather heavily trained on existing apps.
— Andy Allen (@asallen) July 1, 2024
This is a "weather app" using the new Make Designs feature and the results are basically Apple's Weather app (left). Tried three times, same results. https://t.co/Ij20OpPCer pic.twitter.com/psFTV6daVD
“Just a heads up to any designers using the new [Make Design] feature that you may want to thoroughly check existing apps or modify the results heavily so that you don’t unknowingly land yourself in legal trouble,” Allen cautioned on X (formerly Twitter).
Figma CEO Dylan Field acknowledged the problem, denying that the AI was trained on Figma content, community files, or existing app designs. Instead, he suggested a problem lies within the “underlying design systems” that inform the AI’s suggestions.
“Ultimately it is my fault for not insisting on a better [quality assurance] process for this work,” Field added.
Figma has since disabled the Make Design feature while it investigates the unintentional Apple mimicry.
Nonetheless, Allen has stood by his stance that generative AI tools such as the Make Design feature are “so fundamentally important to the future of design,” believing they allow designers to have “MORE creative expression, not less.” He said the company will share more soon as Make Design weathers through little storm.
(1) As we shared at Config last week - as well as on our blog, our website, and many other touchpoints - the Make Design feature is not trained on Figma content, community files or app designs. In other words, the accusations around data training in this tweet are false. https://t.co/jlfmroPPhm
— Dylan Field (@zoink) July 2, 2024
[via TechCrunch and 9to5Mac, images via various sources]
