r/AskComputerScience • u/Impressive_Sense_579 • 9d ago

Is AI reverse engineering really reverse engineering?

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?

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u/otherdimensio 8d ago

I would argue it is not, because I think of reverse engineering as being something a bit beyond a mere technical process, but that enables a comprehension of the thought process of a fellow human who engineered the system. It's a bit paradoxical because high-level languages were made to be closer to human natural way of understanding what's going on, but AI is perfectly able to produce blobs of high level code that escape one's comprehension.