'Almost a copy of Apple Weather'. Figma removes new AI tool after accusations of design theft

The Figma Make Designs tool created program layouts in a matter of seconds using generative AI - and some of the results, as it turned out later, were too similar to Apple's weather application.

Figma CEO Dylan Field finally announced the removal of the program and took full responsibility, explaining that he strictly demanded the team to meet deadlines, which supposedly could lead to errors.

(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

Meanwhile, in other social media posts, the head of Not Boring Software, Andy Allen, vividly demonstrated how Figma Make Designs copies Apple Weather's design:

Figma AI looks rather heavily trained on existing apps.

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/Ij20OpPCerpic.twitter.com/psFTV6daVD

— Andy Allen (@asallen) July 1, 2024

Jay Peters from The Verge in an interview with Figma's CTO Chris Rasmussen asked directly — did Make Designs learn from Apple's app design? Here is his response:

"We did not conduct training within the generative AI functions. The functions are provided by ready-made models and a special design system that we commissioned, which, apparently, is the main problem."

Rasmussen added that the key artificial intelligence models used by Make Designs are GPT-4o from OpenAI and Titan Image Generator G1 from Amazon. If this is true, then the question arises, did they not learn from Apple's developments?

At the same time, Figma notes that Make Designs was in beta, which "by definition, are imperfect." After fixing the issues (and possibly retraining), the feature is planned to be reintroduced.

Last week, Figma announced its own AI training policy, under which users must decide by August 15 whether they agree to provide their content (Starter and Professional plans are included by default, while Organization and Enterprise plans are disabled by default).