
Writing for art and design website Creative Bloq, journalist Joseph Foley reported that AI is now able to recreate a website’s code from just a screenshot.
Foley writes:
There can be no doubt that AI is changing web design, but we continue to be stunned by how fast it’s happening. The latest jaw-dropping AI web design implementation to catch our attention is a tool designed to generate functional HTML and CSS from a screenshot. Yep, a screenshot.
This ‘Screenshot-to-Code’ function is a new frontier in terms of AI capabilities, and it has sparked much interest and discussion online. You can watch a video demonstration here.
Shared on GitHub, Screenshot-to-Code uses GPT-4 Vision to generate the code and DALL-E 3 to generate similar-looking images. You can also paste in a URL to clone a live website. The resulting website won’t be immediately usable since the AI can only create a first draft front end; it’s not going to build the back-end database and APIs. It will also have made-up images initially.
As many people have pointed out, this technology will clearly need some tweaks before it is able to deliver fully functional websites. However, there is a lot of potential here, and this has sparked ‘a mix of awe and fear’.
The fear is mainly around two issues that often come up with advances in AI: jobs and fraud. Some are predicting that such tools could mean little future for front-end engineer jobs in few years. Meanwhile, others are concerned about the potential to easily copy the look of any website. One person has already dubbed it a ‘Phishing Scam Creator Tool’ on X.
These are valid concerns, although some developers may see this as a tool that can be integrated into their existing processes. The truth is yet to be seen, but we’ll be keeping an eye on any developments in the story.
If you’re intrigued, why not check out Screenshot-to-Code for yourself. You’ll have to enter your email to enter the site, and pay at least $15 to get started.
At Novagram, we believe it’s important to keep in touch with any new technologies that may impact both our work, and the design industry as a whole.
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