alt Hacker News> don’t tell me I did not “make” it because it simply would not exist if I hadn’t created it.
So like when I went to a restaurant last week and "made" a cheeseburger with no lettuce and extra onions, because it wouldn't exist if I hadn't created it.
To me, making something can mean you did the physical work of its creation even if there's no particular creative expression, like "I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
It can also apply to tasks where you've offloaded a bunch of work that once would've been done by hand, like "I made this bench using a circular saw."
Where things get hairy even with physical objects is processes like CNC or 3D printers. If you download "Articulated dragon.stl" from a website and press the print button, did you make that? Personally, no. But if you designed your own flexy dragon and printed it, then yes. If you set up a relief carving on a CNC machine or do a perfectly fit inlay, are you making that? Operating these still takes quite a bit of knowledge and skill, but different knowledge and skill from hand woodworking. What if the tools improve and become very easy to operate?
I don't think there's a hard line you can draw. But if there is, it's somewhere between "did everything by hand with no assistance from recently invented tools because those are cheating" and "ordered a sandwich and waited for the finished result to show up."
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How do people imagine the process of creating software with AI? Tell it “I need an app where I can send images to friends” and accept the first result?
In your analogy, what I’m talking about is more like talking to a chef with the idea of a novel recipe and describing the ingredients and how you would like it to taste (of course also accepting suggestions).
I would take more pride in that meal than in a standard burger I completely cooked myself - maybe because I know I am able to prepare a great tasting burger and already did so many times. OTOH if this would be the first burger I made in my life I would be immensely proud of it.
You know Gaudí? He was a great architect, and made great constructions visited by millions, like Casa Batlló, Casa Milà, or la Sagrada Familia.
To be fair he didn't place a single stone, and la Sagrada Familia was finished long after his death.
So yes, I believe you can make products using LLMs.
If there is a line, it's definitely between "I designed the architecture, and decided on what each class should do, before letting AI do a single line" and "I told AI to clone twitter as is".
Although the latter could be akin to kids colouring books. "I made AI clone twitter, but painted it red and called it rettiw." As long as there was some decision or a modicum of effort it's "ok". We can let them have their victories and try again.
This is why I like to draw a distinction between design, fabrication, and assembly. "Make" is too generic a word to convey what role you actually had in the creation of something, if you're actually trying to be precise. You can fabricate something with CNC tooling that someone else designed, and that can be its own quite substantial challenge, but it's a different challenge than that of the design. And you can assemble your own bookcase from the flatpack Ikea shipped you, but that's different than fabricating the flatpack in the first place.
I disagree with this line of reasoning. To the same extent, I could say that you did not make an app because you didn’t write the compiled assembly code, build the processor, make the silicone yourself, etc.
Tools are tools. Same as Photoshop, Ableton, they get you to where you want to go.
Where is the line drawn?
You made a decision to order a cheeseburger and the cook wouldn't have made it without you ordering it, so you both played a part in making the cheeseburger.
The restaurant comparison doesn't really hold up. The parent didn't go choose from a menu of new apps that they wanted AI to create. They discovered a problem or a feature that doesn't exist on other platforms and they employed tools to create that. Does a product manager not get to claim they "made" something because they plan it out and employ others to actually build the finished product?
Both of the examples the parent gave include some kind of planning and ideating to get to a final product, regardless of the fact that they employed tools to do a bulk of the coding work.