Category · 11 projects
Software & tools
Apps, extensions, scripts, automations and open-source projects built with or around AI.
Projects in this category
ArtCraft Crafting Apps
Brandon Thomas / ArtCraft
Seven free, open-source desktop apps written in Rust to replace Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom and the rest of Adobe's suite, coded with AI in a matter of days.
Why it is not slop. Honest about being unfinished: the apps are labelled alpha, the code is open for anyone to audit, and the project started a real debate about what AI-written software is worth.
Bitchat
Jack Dorsey
A messenger that works with no internet, hopping between phones over Bluetooth, written by Twitter's co-founder in a weekend with an AI coding agent.
Why it is not slop. Included as a landmark of agent-written software, flaws included. The lesson is in the open code and the public correction.
Cal AI
Zach Yadegari & Henry Langmack
Photograph your plate and the app estimates its calories. Built by two eighteen-year-olds, it passed five million downloads in eight months by the founders' count.
Why it is not slop. Included as the clearest case of a tiny team turning a model into a product people pay for. The claimed ninety percent accuracy is the thing to question.
Be My AI
Be My Eyes & OpenAI
Blind and low-vision users photograph anything and receive a detailed description, with a human volunteer one tap away.
Why it is not slop. The AI answers a real need faster than a person can, and admits when a person is needed.
Glaze & Nightshade
Ben Zhao's lab, University of Chicago
Two free tools that let artists protect their images: Glaze hides their style from models, Nightshade poisons unauthorised training. Nightshade was downloaded 250,000 times in five days.
Why it is not slop. AI research pointed at AI, on the artists' side. The clearest example of the technology being used to say no.
Khanmigo
Khan Academy
A tutor that refuses to give the answer: it asks questions, hints and checks the student's reasoning instead.
Why it is not slop. A chatbot designed around what good teaching is, not around what the model wants to do. Restraint as a feature.
Deep Nostalgia
MyHeritage with D-ID
Upload an old family photo and the face blinks, turns and smiles. Tens of millions of ancestors were animated in the first weeks.
Why it is not slop. A deliberately narrow use of face animation, with the guardrails stated up front. It moved people because of what it refused to do.
Merlin Bird ID: Sound ID
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Hold up your phone and the app names the birds singing around you, live, even when several sing at once.
Why it is not slop. A free, scientific tool that turns listening into learning. The data comes from the community and goes back to it.
Seek by iNaturalist
iNaturalist (California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic)
Point the camera at a plant, bug or animal and the app identifies it on the device, with badges for kids and no account required.
Why it is not slop. Curiosity rewarded instantly, backed by a real scientific database. A camera that makes you look closer.
Te Hiku Media speech tools
Te Hiku Media
A Māori broadcaster built its own speech recognition for te reo Māori from recordings donated by the community, under a data licence the community controls.
Why it is not slop. The opposite of scraping. A model that exists to keep a language alive, owned by the people who speak it.
Seeing AI
Microsoft (Saqib Shaikh)
A free app that narrates the world for blind users: reads text and documents, recognises people and products, describes scenes and currency.
Why it is not slop. Designed by the people who need it, years before chatbots. Still the model for what assistive AI should feel like.