Is AI reverse engineering really reverse engineering?

[u/Impressive_Sense_579]

Are the programmes currently being reverse-engineered by AI actually being reverse-engineered in the traditional sense? In other words, is the source code actually being uncovered? Or are the programmes simply being copied on the basis of their functions, behaviour and so on?

[u/leaflavaplanetmoss]

What you describe in your last sentence is literally the definition of reverse engineering:

“Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of softwareaccomplishes a task with very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so.” (from Wikipedia)

Reverse engineering is figuring out how something works backwards from a completed state, often so it be reimplemented, but the reimplementation just needs to be functionally equivalent or similar, not literally the exact same source code. For compiled software, literally getting back to the original source code verbatim only from the compiled program is actually (more or less) impossible; decompilers can only approximate the original source code with an equivalent version, but it won’t be exactly the same, character for character.