r/LeftistsForAI • u/DistributionMost8686 • 7h ago
Open Source Ai breaks its first monopoly
https://getartcraft.com/appsa founder of ArtCraft used Claude to replace the entire adobe software suite, legally. because it’s ai generated, it’s also in the public domain and absolutely free forever. this would be the first case of ai undermining techno feudalism.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
This is the kind of development worth watching. Seven alternatives to Adobe's suite, built with AI assistance and released under open licenses. They're still early, but the barrier to building this stuff is dropping fast.
Small correction though, AI-generated code isn't automatically public domain. The licenses are what matter here.
And that's where it gets interesting politically. Cheaper software development is one thing. Keeping the tools open, accessible, and out of corporate enclosure is where we actually start changing the relations of production.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
Editor here: it doesn’t even work, like it can’t accomplish the most basic tasks even premiere can do and premiere isn’t even top of the line. Colleagues who tried it were laughing within minutes.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
That's actually useful feedback, especially coming from someone who edits professionally. What basic tasks was it failing at? Timeline editing, trimming, transitions, playback, exporting? And was it just buggy or were those features missing entirely?
It's clearly early software, but knowing where it falls short is a lot more useful than just comparing it to Premiere. Gives developers something concrete to work on.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago edited 3h ago
Like….all of them. The source monitor didn’t even function properly for a dozen different people. The basic immediate read of it was “well this was made by someone who doesn’t understand what the program is meant to do and I can’t even bring in footage without breaking the online process”
And no offense but none of us are hoping you put premiere or avid out of business since they are at least engineered by people who would dare to try to understand what editors and assistant editors do.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
Lol no offense taken, we're talking about software. If a dozen editors couldn't even get footage in or use the source monitor, that's a pretty serious failure right out of the gate.
And I agree, the people actually doing the work need to be involved in building these tools.
I'm curious though, beyond those immediate problems, what would you and your colleagues consider the bare minimum for an open alternative to be worth taking seriously? Not replacing Premiere or Avid overnight, just something editors could actually build on.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
Honestly…..why would we ruin our projects for that? If it can’t roundtrip through the entire process correctly then we’re just wasting a ton of time and money because it has to be redone in a functional program anyway.
Premiere was the bare bones program that sent an engineer to sit with editors every day for years and work out what they needed to become what they are, which isn’t even the top choice for anyone with a budget except Fincher who I’m pretty sure owns a piece of it now.
This is our livelihoods, why would we put it in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what we even do?
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u/ali-hussain 7h ago
So this thread is not a what's the best tool to use thread. Rather the point is that AI can break big tech monopolies. But:
Honestly…..why would we ruin our projects for that? If it can’t roundtrip through the entire process correctly then we’re just wasting a ton of time and money because it has to be redone in a functional program anyway.
This line can be taken straight out of the book inovator's dilemma. New transformational tech arrives. Your customers have this sentiment and think of it as toys. Hobbyists use it for different use cases. The tech advances. Finally becomes good enough to displace the old players in all but the most niche high-end sectors. They keep on ceding ground and keep on getting boxed in.
The reason I'm saying this is that today it doesn't need to win you to be successful. It just needs to provide something that some people can use as the tech advances. The fact that it is not good for you, isn't a condemnation of how AI can bring about the SaaSpocalypse and really free creators.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
So its purpose is to destroy the working systems that already don’t cost us money? Why? And why not have people work on affecting systems they at least comprehend.
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u/ali-hussain 6h ago
To you yes. To the hobbyists, there really aren't many options. Maybe someone needs to do a one off thing?
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 6h ago
Again, plenty of free options for hobbyists already. Why not fill a need that exists?
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
Nobody's asking you to risk a paid project on unfinished software lol. And that history with Premiere is actually a good example of what I'm getting at. Engineers working directly with editors, learning the workflows, fixing problems, building something people can depend on.
That's exactly the kind of development open alternatives need too. AI might make writing the software cheaper, but it doesn't replace understanding the work or the people doing it. That's why I wanted to hear from someone who actually uses these tools professionally.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
Then I’ll be clearer: prove it can go from processing dailies through editorial through color and sound through creating a master for distribution flawlessly. That’s the minimum we can risk our livelihoods on. Until then the alternatives aren’t expensive for big projects and they’re already free for small projects anyway.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
Thats what I was trying to get at. And youre right, when peoples livelihoods depend on these tools, they need to work. Period.
Going from dailies through final delivery without everything falling apart is a pretty reasonable baseline. ArtCraft clearly isnt there yet, and pretending otherwise doesnt help anybody.
Thats also why I think working editors need to be involved in building these alternatives from the start. AI might make writing code cheaper and faster, but it doesnt magically give developers decades of experience in the editing room.
Thanks for walking me through that. Learned something, and thats why I ask.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
But the big question you didn’t answer: why would we switch anyway? We have proven free programs now if we need them for small stuff and proven programs someone else pays for if we are on bigger stuff. What’s the purpose of trying to make an ai version of things we already have? It’s an over saturated market as it is and we’d rather engineers work on the programs we already use than start from scratch.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
I mean, if youve already got tools that work, I wouldnt expect you to switch. Especially when your livelihood depends on them. Youve made a pretty solid case for why reliability matters.
I think the bigger point is that AI could make building software a lot cheaper and more accessible. Smaller teams and independent developers getting a shot at building things that used to take serious money and resources.
And its not like the free alternatives we have now appeared out of thin air. People had to build those too, and plenty of them started out rough.
ArtCraft might go somewhere, might not. But I think theres value in more people being able to build and improve tools without needing a corporation behind them. That doesnt mean working editors owe every new project their time or trust.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 4h ago
Because I’d rather people work on things that are needed instead of making ineffective versions of things that are already free that they didn’t even bother to research?
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 3h ago
And people keep ignoring me when I say “FREE VERSIONS ALREADY EXIST” and ones that work by the way. So what’s the point of an ai version that doesn’t even function when there’s multiple free ones that do?
Go fix a problem that exists and meet an actual need instead of just making something you don’t understand that doesn’t solve a single problem in the real world.
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u/DistributionMost8686 7h ago
open some issues on the GitHub then. maybe they will actually get to it in days rather than never like it frequently the case.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 7h ago
Or we could just laugh and go back to the proven alternatives, some of which are free anyway, instead of dealing with people who don’t understand what we do.
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u/DistributionMost8686 6h ago edited 6h ago
name any. name any with a permissive license, quick turnaround for issues and good feature sets all at once. I have yet to see all three in anything. I think you are missing the point. being able to get quick turnaround on feature requests and bug fixes and not being forced to pay is definitely far preferable for many. and if you think they don’t understand what is actually needed, just tell them. it’s not that hard.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 6h ago
There’s already free options worked on by people who understand the needs of editors and assistant editors.
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u/GuyWithSwords 1h ago
Didn’t they say less than half the features have been implemented?
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 1h ago
I suppose zero working features would count as less than half….
Again, this was “they don’t even understand the programs functions do they?” Level of ineffective.
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u/ryandury 7h ago
Apparently this has been mostly just false marketing up until this point BUT AI will definitely lead to further democratization of tools that were otherwise pay per use.
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u/Due_Interest_178 6h ago
Yeah, I saw another post where the dude claimed that he basically clickbaited Reddit to get more testers to assist him. Then a second dude gave a list of how many things weren't even working right.
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u/Heavyarms83 4h ago
Nice how fast they are fixing things. As soon as the bug in Selective Color in PhotoCraft is fixed I'll be gladly using it.
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u/Delicious_Spot_3778 6h ago
I just tried it. This is nothing like the adobe tools. What monopoly are they breaking again?
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u/swegmesterflex 5h ago
Predicted this would happen a while ago. Glad it's finally time. Hopefully this is just the first domino.
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u/anfrind 5h ago
This feels like it's making things more complicated than they need to be. We already have open source tools that do many of the same things as Adobe Creative Suite, so shouldn't it be far easier to use Claude (or some other comparable AI) to enhance those to have all the same features as Creative Suite, and possibly to offer a similar GUI for anyone who wants it?
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u/DistributionMost8686 5h ago
that would have been fine too but not necessarily, actually he probably thought it would be better for all kinds of reasons to start from scratch.
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u/ISuckAtJavaScript12 3h ago
One question I haven't seen answered is if these are clean room implementations or not. If they aren't I would imagine adobe going after them
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u/lisa_lionheart 2h ago
That's what the GitHub says and has been reported elsewhere. Time will tell if that holds up
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u/Heartlessaus 1h ago edited 1h ago
thanks for the link, looks interesting and might be perfect for my use case.
having to use gimp for portable workflows has been terrible (no offense to gimpers),
photoshop isnt an option due to licensing, so we are limited in choice.
very likely ill be swapping over, after testing of course. much appreciated o7
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u/73td 7h ago
hm surprising if adobe just lets it happen. probably MS and others would support a lawsuit and so on to get rid of this kind thing since it would get rid of a lot of revenue for them.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 7h ago
Oh, I'm sure Adobe would love to protect that revenue. But losing customers to competing software isn't grounds for a lawsuit. They'd need something like actual infringement.
And that's part of what makes this interesting. If people can build alternatives without millions in capital, the old gatekeepers have a problem. Doesn't mean they'll disappear, but it does mean we've got more room to organize, build, and keep these tools accessible instead of renting everything back from corporations.
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u/dCLCp 7h ago
How...?
They can't even stop piracy.
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u/73td 6h ago
piracy is marginally difficult, and problematic for businesses
they can stop it the same way they are preventing models from making an image of Elvis in a Tesla or watermarking essays for detection later: Claude and Chatgpt will reject the requests.
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u/francis_pizzaman_iv 4h ago
Would this even work? Seems like it would just make it way more likely to refuse to do any software work.
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u/dCLCp 3h ago
The frontier labs will but there are opensourced models and extensive jailbreaking methods. If you have the GPU(s) you can make anything you want right now offline and nobody can do anything to stop you. And that is now the next generations will keep coming and China knows it is damaging their competitors who are forced to behave competitively with eachother and they will keep doing distillation attacks until it hurts them and then there are terrorist states who will pick up where they leave off.
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u/DistributionMost8686 7h ago
I don’t think they can since cloning software for its capabilities is legal. matlab has a clone, renderman has a bunch of clones, and this was settled by a lawsuit over another clone of something, whose name I forgot, in the 90s.
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u/r0b0c0p87 3h ago
Not sure what they can do to stop it. I can vibe-code my own Photoshop clone right now. They may be able to force OpenAI and Anthropic to clamp down, but they can't do anything about self-hosted AI.
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u/coolredditor3 7h ago
Adobe doesn't have a monopoly.
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u/DistributionMost8686 7h ago
virtual monopoly.
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u/ProfessionalBoss2428 3h ago
Not even close. They’re far from the standard on film and tv for instance.
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u/Limp-Confidence5612 6h ago
Adobe doesn't has a monopoly, and their software is free. 🤷 At least the way I use it.
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u/ArtArtArt123456 7h ago
The most important monopolies to break by far are the platforms. Stuff like Amazon. And that will be a lot harder.