Figma disables new AI design feature after being called out on social media

After Figma’s new AI feature was called out for looking like Apple’s Weather app, the CEO Dylan Field has temporarily disabled it until they feel “confident” in standing behind its output.

The founder of NotBoring Software, Andy Allen, was the first to spot the similarities as he took to X to accuse Figma of ‘heavily’ training its tool on existing apps. The Figma CEO has denied the accusation in his response.

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/Ij20OpPCer pic.twitter.com/psFTV6daVD

— Andy Allen (@asallen) July 1, 2024

“Figma AI looks rather heavily trained on existing apps,” writes Andy Allen. He includes a side-by-side of Figma AI and Apple’s Weather app and says he tested the new tool three times and each output resulted in an almost carbon copy.

After, he issued a warning to any designers using the new ‘Make Design’ feature as he said “you may want to thoroughly check existing apps or modify the results heavily so that you don’t unknowingly land yourself in legal trouble.”

A day later, on July 2, Dylan Field replied to Allen’s comments. He said: “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.”

(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

The new feature is by the collaborative design tool company Figma.

He says ‘Make Design’ uses off-the-shelf LLMs combined with design systems that have been commissioned to be used by these models. He explains how within hours of seeing the tweet by Allen, they identified the issue which was “related to the underlying design systems that were created.

“Ultimately it is my fault for not insisting on a better QA process for this work and pushing our team hard to hit a deadline for Config.”

The tool will be re-enabled when a full QA pass has been completed on the underlying design system. While a date for the second launch isn’t yet known, the founder teases it by saying ‘more soon.’

Featured Image: Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash

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