After Weather application rip-offs, Figma disables the AI-powered” Create Design” feature.

Andy Allen’s attempts to create a weather application using Figma resulted in an app that is a ripoff of Apple (left).
Figma announced that it will temporarily disable its AI App UI Design tool after accusations that the model was trained on Apple’s Weather App. Figma’s “Make Design”, a feature that allows users to create their own apps, has been surrounded by controversy since NotBoring Software developer Andy Allen proved that the AI software would simply copy Apple’s weather app when asked repeatedly. Figma CEO Dylan Field responded by calling the accusation “false”. He did this in a series tweets on X.com. The “Make Design” system relies heavily on Large Language Models, but also uses “bespoke underlying designs systems” that Field created. The company has now identified the problem and blamed its own design system. The tool is still unavailable as of this report. There is no timetable for its return. Field reinterpretated in his X post that “the Make Design tool is not trained on Figma, community files, app designs, or other Figma content,” refuting Allen’s accusation. He noted that this approach has the disadvantage of a low level of design variability. Field admitted that he was to blame for not insisting upon a better QA procedure for this work and for not pushing our team to meet a deadline for Config, the company’s annual event. Apple, who provided Figma with the design resources used by developers around the world, has yet to comment on the issue. This new controversy comes after Adobe’s $20 billion attempt to buy Figma was dropped. The move was made in response to UK and EU regulators who argued that the acquisition was anticompetitive.