Commentary: AI Recreates Photoshop — Copying Is Cheap, Decisions Aren’t
Comments on “Commentary: AI Recreates Photoshop — Copying Is Cheap, Decisions Aren’t”
3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked
Brandon Thomas's ArtCraft project released 13 Rust applications, including PhotoCraft, a Photoshop clone largely generated by Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, and claimed "software is over." This commentary argues the claim is wrong: PhotoCraft succeeds because it copies a fixed, observable target, while most real software requires decisions no template can…
Why it ranked
No. 89 of 110 with a score of 0.57. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.75) and audience breadth (0.73), lowest on technical depth (0.46). The judges disagreed most on new information (spread 0.48), so the story is marked contested. Placed No. 89, No. 80 by score alone: the 37th AI & machine learning story of the day (−0.080). The placement terms move stories; they are not part of the score.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- Opinion piece on AI cloning Photoshop via PhotoCraft; argues copying is cheap but product decisions are not. Relevant to builders, grounded in project's own stated gaps, but no new research and largely argumentative.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- A timely, relevant analysis of agent-generated software, grounded in project documentation and concrete parity limits. Its main value is the distinction between cloning observable behavior and making domain-specific product decisions.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.57total under rubric v2.3Contestedjudges differ by 0.48 on new information
- Significance0.51
- Reader interest0.70
- Audience breadth0.73
- Practical relevance0.56
- Substantiated0.62
- Technical depth0.46
- New information0.75
- Counts against: Promotional0.08
- Counts against: Overclaim0.24
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.56 | 0.35 | 0.62 | 0.51 | 0.27 | +0.24 | +0.123 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.72 | 0.55 | 0.82 | 0.70 | 0.27 | +0.26 | +0.181 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.89 | 0.60 | 0.70 | 0.73 | 0.29 | +0.13 | +0.095 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.56 | 0.45 | 0.68 | 0.56 | 0.23 | +0.22 | +0.124 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.63 | 0.50 | 0.72 | 0.62 | 0.22 | +0.05 | +0.031 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.60 | 0.30 | 0.48 | 0.46 | 0.30 | +0.05 | +0.023 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.87 | 0.45 | 0.93 | 0.75 | 0.48 , above the contested threshold | +0.05 | +0.038 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.03 | 0.08 | 0.07 | −0.19 | −0.015 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.18 | 0.35 | 0.18 | 0.24 | 0.17 | −0.11 | −0.026 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.574 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.574 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-29/89/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-29/89.svg" alt="Ranked #89 on Rubric, 29 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN —
Recorded for context only, checked 29 Oct 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.