Daily Digest: Figma's hiccup explained

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2. Figma has an update on its AI design feature. Figma's new "Make Designs" AI tool got caught red-handed spitting out Apple lookalikes. Figma handcrafted design systems to use as context for this feature but some real app screens slipped through.🍿Our summary (also below)

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QUICK BITES

Figma's new "Make Designs" AI tool got caught red-handed spitting out Apple lookalikes. Oops! They yanked the feature while they sorted out this digital doppelganger drama. The feature isn’t back live yet, but they have more details.

What's going on here?

Figma explains how its “Make Design” feature works.

What does this mean?

Figma rolled out an AI tool to auto-generate UI designs, but it started churning out suspicious mockups, one too similar to Apple’s Weather app. They temporarily disabled it to fix the issue.

To build this feature, Figma used pre-made design systems as building blocks. Near the launch, more systems, components and files were added but some late additions weren't vetted properly.

These sketchy components slipped through and made the AI's output look like existing apps. It's not just a "my bad" moment—this could land users in legal hot water if they unknowingly used copycatted designs.

Why should I care?

This snafu highlights the tightrope walk of AI in creative tools. Figma swears they didn't train on actual app designs, but clearly something went sideways in their process.

While AI promises to speed up design work, this was an example of accidental plagiarism on a massive scale. Tool makers like Figma, have to make sure that AI lends a hand without copying everything, A to Z.

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