Dylan Field, the CEO of Figma, has announced that the business will temporarily stop its “Make Design” AI tool, which was allegedly copying the aesthetics of Apple’s Weather app
Andy Allen, the proprietor of NotBoring Software, which produces a suite of applications that includes a popular, skinnable Weather app and other utilities, identified the issue first.
He discovered that the Figma tool would consistently replicate Apple’s Weather app when utilized as a design assistant by conducting a test.
Allen had accused Figma of “heavily” training its tool on existing applications on X, which was previously Twitter. Field has since denied this accusation.
The Make Design feature of Figma’s software generates UI (user interface) layouts and components from text queries. “The company explained that the feature will provide you with a first draft if you simply describe your requirements” at its launch.
According to Figma, the concept was that developers could utilize the feature to expedite capturing their ideas to investigate various design directions and subsequently arrive at a solution more rapidly.
Field notes in his response to X that the feature was introduced at Figma’s Config conference last week, during which the company clarified that it was not trained on Figma content, community files, or app designs.
“In other words, the allegations regarding data training in this tweet are unfounded,” he stated.
However, the quality assurance work that should have accompanied new additions appears to have been neglected in the haste to introduce new AI features to remain competitive.
Immediately, some designers argued that Figma’s AI tools, such as Make Design, would eliminate jobs by bringing digital design to the mass market, mirroring complaints in other industries.
However, others countered that AI would help to eliminate a lot of the repetitive work that went into design, allowing more exciting ideas to emerge.
Allen’s discovery that Figma was emulating other applications heightened the concern of the design community.
Allen cautioned other users on X, “Just a heads up to any designers using the new Make Designs feature that you may want to thoroughly check existing apps or modify the results heavily to avoid unknowingly landing yourself in legal trouble.”
In response, Field clarified that Make Design employs “systems we commissioned to be used by these models” in conjunction with “off-the-shelf large language models.” He stated that the issue with this method is that the variability could be much higher.
Field wrote on X, “We identified the issue within hours of seeing [Allen’s] tweet, which was related to the underlying design systems created.”
“Ultimately, I am responsible for not advocating for a more rigorous QA process for this project and for not exerting as much pressure on our team to meet the Config deadline.”
Apple did not respond to inquiries promptly. Figma cited Field’s remarks as its official stance on the matter.
“Figma will temporarily disable the Make Design feature until the team is confident in its ability to stand behind its output,” Field stated. The feature will be disabled on Tuesday and not reactivated until Figma has concluded a comprehensive QA assessment of the feature’s underlying design system.