For a long time, big tech said AI would replace the people who write software. In this video I flip that around: if AI can build the software, why are we still paying the companies that sell it? Adobe and Sony’s PlayStation are the first places it’s showing.
The companies that pushed AI are now feeling it
A lot of the companies that laid people off to switch to AI are now panicking, because AI is hitting their own bottom line. As token prices went up, it started making more sense for businesses to run open-source AI locally on something like a Mac mini or AMD’s newer machines, about three to four thousand dollars per computer, instead of paying for tokens and subscriptions. Most companies don’t need enterprise-level AI anyway. Now some of the big players are pushing to regulate open-source AI.
Free AI-built alternatives to Adobe
When companies said AI would write their software, my first thought was simple: then why buy your software? People are doing exactly that. Free AI-made versions of the tools in Adobe’s Creative Suite now exist. Why pay a $300-a-month subscription when AI can build something that does what you want, with no bloat and no paywall?
PlayStation, jailbroken by AI
PlayStation is the big example everyone is talking about. Going all-digital and dropping backwards compatibility sped things up. People used AI to break the PS5’s lock system, so older discs like PS2 games run on a PS5, and games can now hit 60 to 120 frames per second. Games from different consoles are also being rebuilt to run in a browser at around 60 fps with no special hardware. Big studios spent millions saying it couldn’t be done, and one person did it over a weekend and gave it away for free.
Keep your old hardware alive
People are also using AI to update old drivers so hardware that Windows 11 dropped can work again. I talk about my own Threadripper machine, a 16-core, 5 GHz processor with an 8 GB Radeon card. It’s still perfectly usable, even for running AI models, but it lost compatibility. If AI can rewrite the drivers, you don’t have to upgrade just because a company says so.
Custom software for your car, phone and OS
Next come subscriptions like heated car seats. Car companies already use AI to write a lot of their software, so people will be able to write their own, unlock features the hardware already has, and remove the tracking. I plan to put custom software on my phone, and eventually a custom-programmed ECU in my older Cadillac for better gas mileage and less engine wear. If everyone runs their own operating system, security could actually improve because there’s no shared weak spot to attack.
Key takeaways
- Local AI is cheaper: a one-time $3,000 to $4,000 machine running open-source AI can replace token and subscription costs for most businesses, since about 90% of enterprise AI features go unused.
- AI broke PlayStation’s limits: a jailbroken PS5 can play older discs like PS2 games and run games at 60 to 120 fps, something big studios said couldn’t be done.
- A new kind of job: people will hire developers to build custom software just for them, like Photoshop, Premiere and Audition in one app. I expect companies like Adobe to lose a lot of capital by the end of 2027.
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