What are your thoughts on using AI for web design?

[d.eastwood]

I'm sure that there are a lot of strong feelings on the topic of AI use. Recently I have been seeing a ton of instagram reels that are all along the same lines: Like this website with a ton of scroll animations? go to it, copy the code and paste it into ChatGPT/Codex/Claude and BOOM you magically have a professional website... which to me is so wack.  How do you edit that? but mainly, How can you justify just ripping off another site? 
I have experimented with Claude redoing my website and what it came up with was terrible. I have been coding (and I use that term loosely) websites for 20+ years. I would look at the code, alter it and figure out what it did. I would find open source javascript galleries to try and implement into my sites. so needless to say, it was a very arduous process that was not enjoyable. the websites I would make were always very basic. I've continued working with Claude over the last couple months, and although the coding aspect has gotten easier (because I'm not doing it) it has still been a frustrating process: I would have the AI wipe out days of work on accident and not be able to get the info back, it would constantly want to skip ahead without refining, and also make mistakes that it would blame on my user error when it was its mistake. It seems like it also just doesn't remember things so I found myself saying the same things over and over... anyway.. I could ramble on..

but what are some other people's thoughts on the topic?

⚑ Moderators Note ⚑

There is already an extensive thread related to AI and its use in creative projects here - please read it before posting.
I will keep this thread open for now as specific to "AI use in web design" (I have updated the title to reflect this), but will merge topics if the debates overlap too much.

[meowcat]

I avoid it as much as I can. AI design looks awful. The gradients and animations are bad.

It's easier to avoid it then start using it, as it sucks you in. AI can be addictive (take a look at r/myboyfriendisai, if you dare), and it has genuinely caused people mental health problems. And that's not even starting with things like AI Music and "Art".

[oro_junestar]

I will not forgive anyone who uses AI. At this point, they are being deliberately ignorant of the devastation it causes. The data centers waste our clean water supply, pollute nearby waters, raise power bills, and emit an ungodly hum, making the area around them uninhabitable. Chatbots spread rampant misinformation, poisoning the minds of their users, and at worst, giving them instructions that get them killed. AI scrapers will steal any and all things they can find without consent, ranging from copyrighted artworks to photos of people's children. AI is regularly weaponized to generate defamatory things of people, such as hate speech, porn, and fake crime footage. I could list so many more things wrong with this abomination of tech.
For these reasons, I cannot tolerate the usage of it anywhere, let alone in web design. Good websites are crafted with personality and meaning, and AI strips all of that away. When you use chatbots to code it, what you have isn't a professional website, it's a meaningless code soup that you polluted a town to make. Don't use Claude anymore, it's just making your website worse, and you'll have a much easier time doing things yourself than deciphering its nonsense.

[d.eastwood]

AI is a tumor that's slowly killing humanity.

Couldn't you say the same thing about social media? It has completely rotted an entire generation, making them dumber than the last and altering people's behavior to support a robot (the algorithm). Yes, AI right now is being used for incredibly disgusting and stupid things (see everything Trump posts) but AI will be necessary in the future for things like deep space travel, advanced robotics etc. Do I think this government and the so called "magnificent 7" are propping up AI as a money grab? Yes of course. Greed is 100% the driving force behind AI (and really most things). There definitely should be more safeguards in place for the material you mentioned (defamatory things of people, such as hate speech, porn, and fake crime footage etc). People also shouldn't have to ask, is this AI? it should be built into metadata and obviously marked.

Good websites are crafted with personality and meaning, and AI strips all of that away. When you use chatbots to code it, what you have isn't a professional website, it's a meaningless code soup that you polluted a town to make. Don't use Claude anymore, it's just making your website worse, and you'll have a much easier time doing things yourself than deciphering its nonsense.

I would never have been able to create the website I created without it, and thats my dilemma.

(take a look at r/myboyfriendisai,

this is fucking crazy.

I've definitely been sucked in...but not that far. AI has been able to help me create things that I would never have had the ability to create before (a website that looks and works like an operating system, an ESP32 based camera + retro game emulator). Does that mean I just shouldn't even try to make those things?  Maybe..

[oro_junestar]

I would never have been able to create the website I created without it, and thats my dilemma.

You absolutely could have. With the power of looking up tutorials and asking for help, you can make anything. If your idea is outside your skill level, keep learning and studying until you're at the level to create it. Of course, it'll take time and effort, like all art does, but you'll get there.

Also, the AI I'm referring to is generative AI, which includes all the images and chatbots. There are some useful AI tools, but generative AI models aren't. They do far more harm than good. Generative AI should not be allowed to exist in the state that it does and it has no place in web design.

[Melooon]

People also shouldn't have to ask, is this AI? it should be built into metadata and obviously marked.

This is something I've thought about a lot when setting up forum rules. Do I add a rule asking people to "declare" AI use on a project they are linking here. I know some other sites like Itch do that. However I concluded its not fair to do. I don't ask people to declare the other tools they use, nor do I ask them to declare if they got help, or used a template, or a site builder etc (I've always believed a great Wix site is just as valid as one coded in Notepad). I don't have the right within the scope of this forum to ask people to provide info they don't choose to provide freely. How you (generalized) make your site is either something I must morally dictate to you (this is impossible), or it's something I must freely let you do however you wish regardless of my feelings (this is the only true choice I can see).

This forum is just one very small test-case, but I think you can scale that perspective up, to a certain extent anyway.

From the position of moderating the SurfClub, I see every site that requests a slot here, and I often snoop the code to see how they do things. Sometimes its quite obvious when they have used an AI, and its also often clear when they have not. I've seen crappy sites made by AIs, but also ones that were quite beautiful and would not have existed without that fusion of tool and human. Likewise I've seen incredibly boring sites made totally by hand, and incredibly fantastic ones that nothing but a person could make. Ultimately, I do have to make a call about what fits the SurfClub here and what does not, and each site is different, and not every call is clear cut to make.

To your core question about should you or should you not. There is no answer to that. You'll get one result by using a tool, you'll get another result using another tool. The tool defines your work, but so does the way you use it. It's your call to make.

[knifex]

Because of how fried search engines have become, AI can be helpful to find a direction in which to orient your research better. However, it is merely a TOOL; not a magical solution machine.

I believe it is acceptable to sparringly use LLMs to get hints for specific ideas you already have but dont know how to execute and cannot find instructions for. But it is CRUCIAL that you don't just mindlessly copy-paste whatever it spat out into your code without thinking!

You must take the time to analyze, understand and adapt the code to your needs, because AI will never give you something that makes sense in the greater context of your project. AI adds a lot of bloat and unnecessary elements to the code, which muddles tit and makes it a pain to update and/or edit later.

If you're struggling getting started without AI, I highly recommend using a template as a jumping off point, and try to use AI only as a last resort for hyperspecific issues- because if the AI found it, that means someone else already made it somewhere! Tough it can sometimes be really hard to find.

AI use is an issue a lot of people see as absolutely black-or-white, but there are some use cases in which I believe AI & LLMs can be helpful- under the condition it is used responsibly: sparingly and as a jumping-off point, never a conclusion

[d.eastwood]

I don't ask people to declare the other tools they use, nor do I ask them to declare if they got help, or used a template, or a site builder etc

that's why I felt the need to let people know myself. this forum (and other sites like it) are so much more personable and it would be disingenuous to me to say 'I created this all by myself'.

However, it is merely a TOOL; not a magical solution machine.

sort've my thoughts exactly. it took a LOT of prompts and builds to get remotely close to something usable.

I see every site that requests a slot here, and I often snoop the code to see how they do things. Sometimes its quite obvious when they have used an AI, and its also often clear when they have not. I've seen crappy sites made by AIs, but also ones that were quite beautiful and would not have existed without that fusion of tool and human. Likewise I've seen incredibly boring sites made totally by hand, and incredibly fantastic ones that nothing but a person could make. Ultimately, I do have to make a call about what fits the SurfClub here and what does not, and each site is different, and not every call is clear cut to make.

if you have time, check out my site https://meridianos.zip. .  It's not just a site but a site builder. completely free. runs locally on your machine.  let me know your thoughts and how it compares to some of the sites that used AI

I believe AI & LLMs can be helpful- under the condition it is used responsibly: sparingly and as a jumping-off point

I agree. I just think right now, like junestar mentioned, the safeguards that protect the public from bad actors just isn't there.

[Melooon]

disingenuous to me to say 'I created this all by myself'.

Why though? Put more broadly; did you make your computer by hand? Did you make the software that runs on it? Did you invent HTML? Did you grow the food you ate to give yourself the energy to write today? You have not created anything all by yourself, no one ever has, so why start making a judgment on that now?

You were the one who made the site, it would not exists without you, regardless of the method you used. You can decide how much or how little assistance you want from the tools around you.You can decide you'll only code on a computer you soldered together from transistors, and that might help bring a feeling of ownership to you.. but that's a game you play on your own, its your rule and your line in the sand.

EDIT: The judgment here is that you are what you make, so you have to decide if this site is who you are? (The fact that you made this thread suggests that maybe its not)

if you have time, check out my sit

Do you really wanna know?  You've got my two personal pet peeves, I don't like virtual operating systems and I hate fake scan lines, and that's just the surface 

[d.eastwood]

Why though? Put more broadly; did you make your computer by hand? Did you make the software that runs on it? Did you invent HTML? Did you grow the food you ate to give yourself the energy to write today? You have not created anything all by yourself, no one ever has, so why start making a judgment on that now?

You were the one who made the site, it would not exists without you, regardless of the method you used. You can decide how much or how little assistance you want from the tools around you. You can decide you'll only code on a computer you soldered together from transistors, and that might help bring a feeling of ownership to you.. but that's a game you play on your own, its your rule and your line in the sand.

all good points. but I can't say I coded this by myself is all. and with people's views on AI, I'd rather be upfront about it instead of omitting that fact.

Do you really wanna know?   You've got my two personal pet peeves, I don't like virtual operating systems and I hate fake scan lines, and that's just the surface 

of course!  good thing you can turn off the scan lines   I'm not going to be able to please everyone lol

[Melooon]

f course!  good thing you can turn off the scan lines

I'll let you set up another thread if you want an aesthetic critique of your site, that's not really on topic here, but always happy to do if you can take it

[futurearcana]

I personally hate ai and anything to do with it, although Melooon's position is understandable. Ultimately, to use it or not is up to individual choice.

But let me try explain you my perspective by asking the question: why do you want to make a website? What are you going to get out of it? If you end up deciding to actively deprive yourself of the processes of artistic creation and learning, what's in it for you?

The way I see it, it's the substance that counts, and if we're talking personal websites as I think we are in this thread, the substance is largely the process itself, even if the result ends up looking "basic".

If it's not enjoyable as it is, no tool is gonna make it any better.

[KeyJayHD]

Hey there,

I'm new and jumping into an obviously divisive subject that could either make friends or enemies from this...ohh well, I'll live lol.

My thoughts on this,
As popular as the negative commentary is for this subject (as negativity oft times speaks louder thanks to social...ironic), honestly I'm fine with using it for web development and design to a degree. Personally I use it pretty frequently recently and have personally found it invaluable for finishing the projects I do for both leisure and for others. I'm excited for its evolution in quality and find the entire space interesting.

Pretty damning? I guess, but here's the thing, I do also recognize the social, economical, and very importantly the ecological harm that AI has done and is continuing to do. That doesn't automatically mean I don't care; nothing is that black and white. I'm totally capable of acknowledging the benefits as well as the negatives as both can be true at the same time. Corporate greed is where all this AI business has gone wrong and while it would be counter intuitive to my goals, I'm totally capable of shouting no to yet another data center and pinning down overuse of it. I'm for the progression of it in a responsible way that doesn't put us at risk; I want local AI to take off, and I agree, more stringent litigation needs to hold these companies accountable, but we're not here for that discussion at all.

On topic, I feel a great deal of criticism to this question is unfair which I think is something @Melooon noted above. You dont ask about how the hotdog was made most of the time. Another person on another Indie space had a great analogy that mentioned, you dont question someone's artistic ability who does mosaic art do you? Or someone who takes a bunch of snips from magazine covers into a sculpture, display it in art galleries, and not say that it's art? No, generally you embrace it. If anything, AI highlights the value of art and the human craft more, but I dont think it at all replaces it but if we're not going to take a photographer to the flame for not crediting the maker of the lightbulb they used in their camera, I dont see why it should be fair for someone who uses AI in a thoughtful capacity as someone who needs to be constantly criticized for every aspect and step of their development process regardless on how little or how much they use it.

Mind you, this is coming from someone who is very used to the traditional way of doing things. It's what I did in College years ago and what got me my second job at one point. As someone who is fully capable of doing websites strictly by hand and finding what I need, I'm actively choosing not to do that (*To a degree. Like I'll do my research say in a framework like Svelte or languages like Go to get the idea of things, but I straight up wont say , "Give this to me in React" because I dont know React at all). Why? Because while I am capable of policing most aspects of the Ai and capable of learning every aspect of what needs to be done, you cant sit and tell me that you dont find two agents going and working on two separate site problems while you're servicing storage on a web server at the same time appealing.

Now will things be perfect, obviously not. OP had a heck of time with it negatively. Even me with one of my big projects, it hallucinated and wiped out a feature I spent an entire week building, just to have to do it again. Through that experience though, it taught me the importance of version control and I now use Git religiously.

TL;DR, guess I'll quote a YouTuber that I saw on this same topic. In the end, right or wrong, both parties will find right and wrong of each. Search long enough, and you'll find the devil in anything. In the end for the most part, you dont get brownie points based on how things are made. You get points when you ship something. What I think is important is since Ai assisted devs are becoming more in line with project managers now, that we now more than ever need to look at our security detail and think about aspects of our code that are exploitable. This changes your thoughts to think more about security rather than less (unless you're building a Tee app). Mind you, I prompt for this, stay abreast with OWASP practices where I can, try to figure out attack vectors as much as I know about, constantly check performance graphs and do my own testing. There is very much a human part for how I work with Ai; there's levels to this. It's not perfect, but for me its enough for now.

I realize my position is generally unpopular, but it is what it is. Ai use in any capacity has just become the next popular big thing to hate. I get it, but it is what it is.

Now generative music and art, yeah no; HARD no. As a musician I don't stand by that at all (mostly for the business ramifications to said artists)   

[meowcat]

We also need to remember that AI models have been trained on stolen and unauthorised data, with scrapers that roam the internet, scraping websites that they do not have permission to scrape.

A company called "Stability AI" decided it would be a great idea to scrape the Getty Images. (source: https://www.taylorwessing.com/en/campaigns/de/2025/ai-and-copyright-tracker).

This is why we should all setup something like Anubis (https://anubis.techaro.lol/) to prevent scraping.

[Rubbereon]

I believe it is acceptable to sparringly use LLMs to get hints for specific ideas you already have but dont know how to execute and cannot find instructions for.

I've had this theory for a while but was afarid to talk about it publicly due to the wording, but since there's an opportunity to talk about it, I genuinely believe there is a psychological operation to get folks to use ai more, specifically by the big search engines like Google and Bing that are deliberately sabotaging their search engines to never turn up the information YOU want. Supporting citations[1][2][3]

I believe the reason you're doing that and why there is ai adoption at all despite everybody knowing that it is bad is because the alternative sucks now, it's psychological manipulation.

I at the very least try to search something up multiple times using different sentences before coming on melonland and asking for help unless I don't have time and need something done immediately, but so far I have only had to ask a llm once for help so far (the duck ai to be clear) and I hope this doesn't increase. It was for something stupid too, I have a very obnoxious page on my website (deliberately so) and I wanna keep the aesthetic, but the background and animated text together makes it hard to read, I fixed it by using color-mix, before then I tried filter: brightness(150%) as well as various blending modes, I was at it for 3 days and no real improvement, so I felt forced at that moment, but I asked a couple questions here because I'd rather not touch ai when I can avoid it and if everybody here can learn something about this is to try to ask the questions on forums first (although sure they vary in quality) before hopping on the ai, and the issue both for me and I'd wager for most people is time, if you need the right answer RIGHT NOW forums don't seem so appealing.

I'm yapping and all that, but I know that when search engines didn't suck (before 2017/2018) I was able to get pretty much any answers to my problems and this is in part why I know so much about image files it's because I learned all about it as a hobby. Whether it's a real conspiracy (like planned obsolescence) or not I dunno, but it feels very true to me considering what's going on with ai in conjunction with search engines becoming outdated literally and way before ai was a thing, now they are obsolete why even use them at this point and waste 4 hours of your life when you can get an easy answer in only 1 minute.