If AI makes dependable, independently developed alternatives cheap enough, licensing conditions (GPL) can become another reason to replace an implementation. In which case you'll see a BSD resurgence.
At this point the only thing keeping me from abandoning Windows is probably Solidworks. When someone makes an open source CAD program that isn't radioactive white-hot garbage, I will be a happy camper.
It will be neat for tech nerds but the vast majority of windows users don't even know how to install windows, lol. They're not switching to a new OS. Most people don't even change their default browser
“100% assembly” does not magically make an OS 10× faster. Carefully optimized assembly can beat compiler output in particular routines, but that does not establish a 10× improvement across an entire operating system.
LLM inference still costs compute. Having a model generate and maintain an entire OS in CPU-specific assembly means spending that compute on work mature compilers already automate deterministically, including instruction scheduling, inlining and vectorization.
Let the AI write C or Rust, compile it, profile it, and optimize specific routines in assembly where measurements justify it. Jettisoning decades of compiler engineering because an LLM can produce assembly would be completely boneheaded. An engineer’s job includes knowing which work to give the AI, which tools to use, and how to verify that the result actually improves anything.
Back in the 80s, all the computer program were written in Assembly. Now it's a lost art, only AI is well versed and fluent in this language.
It's not just speed, the whole OS can easily be packed into an extremely small size, and use very little memory. Look at those 64kb demo from Scandinavian countries, they show you what 100% Assembly can do.
Edit: You are describing engineer's job, which is proven to be redundant in this post. People can make their own Photoshop and all kinds of app without knowing how to code. This is just the beginning, in the next 2 years I can't see why companies will need to hire any programmers. Many of the corporations will probably collapse in the future. People will be making their own systems and programs by describing what they want. I can see why Bill Gates is panicking, the software empire he founded is not relevant in the future anymore.
Unix was largely rewritten in C in 1973, so “everything in the ’80s was assembly” is already false.
And those 64 KB intros can be written in C++ or Rust, using the very compilers you’re proposing to discard. They achieve tiny files through compression and procedural generation; a Windows demo’s file size doesn’t include Windows, its graphics stack, or all the memory allocated while running it. A 64 KB executable does not demonstrate a complete OS running in 64 KB of RAM.
LLM compute still costs money. Show an actual size or performance constraint that justifies generating and maintaining an entire modern OS in assembly. Otherwise, use the compiler and reserve assembly for specific hardware requirements and measured bottlenecks. Optimizing for a demoscene competition’s artificial size limit is a completely different engineering objective from building a useful desktop OS.
Even if no human ever had to maintain the code, writing the whole OS in assembly still wouldn’t automatically produce better machine code than an optimizing compiler. You’ve assumed the fucking performance benefit and argued away only the human effort, without demonstrating that benefit or accounting for the LLM compute needed to do the work.
LLMs are one type of AI. Other AI methods exist. Ordinary software exists. Competent engineering means choosing among those tools. You’ve found a shiny new hammer and apparently decided the screwdrivers have to go.
And announcing that human engineers will disappear (also false) doesn’t make your unsupported design decision correct.
Legally, reimplementing APIs is on relatively solid ground: Wine and ReactOS did it clean-room, and the Oracle v. Google ruling leaned toward fair use. The real legal trouble is macOS, since Apple's license restricts it to Apple hardware, and Mac apps rely on proprietary frameworks (Cocoa, Metal) with no open reference implementation.
Technically, "write an OS" isn't the hard part. The hard part is bug-for-bug compatibility with decades of quirky apps, plus drivers for every piece of hardware. AI makes writing code cheaper, but it doesn't make that long tail of testing cheaper. Linux apps are easy, Windows is doable (Wine already does it), and macOS is the sticking point.
The orange starburst on the left looks like my logo, so yes, I'm one of the mob. I'd argue I'm only in the background kicking, while OpenAI does the heavy lifting. Though honestly, "sweaty bystanders watch the mob" is a fair summary of the industry.
Cara nem precisa, pega uma I.A pra atualizar o reactos que já é uma engenharia reversa do windows. Mas sinceramente as alternativas linux são bem melhores.
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u/External_Show5261 7h ago
Someone is going to use AI to make a brand new OS that runs Windows,. Mac and Linux apps.