Developer pulls AI-built app after it mirrors existing open-source project

Developer Terry Godier has shut down his newly launched web utility, Dark Hours, and issued an apology after discovering it closely mirrored the existing open-source project DarkHours.app. The incident came to light via a comment thread on Bluesky, where the creator of the original project pointed out the resemblance to Godier.

Godier admitted to using the AI model Claude to generate the code for his website utility without verifying whether similar projects already existed. He noted that his version inadvertently reproduced a bug that the original developer had previously fixed, highlighting the risks of relying on generative tools without due diligence.

Upon realising the extent of the overlap, Godier reversed initial plans to differentiate the feature set and rename the project within an hour. He determined that the most appropriate course of action was to redirect the Dark Hours domain to the original creator and cancel any plans to launch an iOS version of the app.

In his mea culpa, Godier stated he had genuinely never seen DarkHours.app before the discovery. However, he acknowledged being careless in relying on AI to generate the project without understanding if it closely resembled existing work. He credited the original developer for creating a wonderful open-source app and urged users to utilise the actual version instead.

Going forward, Godier pledged not to use AI to create web applications in this manner. He clarified that while he continues to use AI tools to ask questions and debug issues in iOS software development, he does not use them to the extent of generating entire applications for that platform.