AI Turns Software Into Glass Boxes — 2026-10-06

Start with the most concrete example.

On October sixth, twenty twenty-six, Ben Thompson's Stratechery update titled Game Decompilation: Is This Legal? A Well-Trodden Path, analyzed the sudden wave of AI-assisted game decompilation.

The examples are wild.

A web browser version of the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved, reportedly with split-screen co-op and multiplayer support for up to one hundred and twenty-eight players, drew twenty thousand players in its first five hours, according to the Polygon reporting Thompson cites.

Then there are the more legally explosive examples: AI-assisted recreations or decompilations touching franchises like Fallout and Modern Warfare two.

Thompson distinguishes between two categories.

A generated Fallout New York style project may be a new game that risks trademark or copyright issues if it uses recognizable names, assets, or items like the Pip-Boy.

But the Modern Warfare two case is more directly about decompilation, using AI agents to reconstruct code from an existing executable.

The technical point is the big one.

Games are written in human-readable languages like C or C++, then compiled into machine code.

Humans have long been able to disassemble machine code into assembly, but reconstructing clean source code has traditionally been slow expert labor.

Thompson's argument is that large language models are unusually well-suited to this job.

Infer what assembly maps to proposed source, test it, validate it, and iterate.

In other words, the compiler used to be a kind of one-way door.

AI is turning it into a revolving door.

Legally, Thompson is careful.

Decompilation is not automatically illegal.

He points to Sega versus Accolade and Sony versus Connectix, where reverse engineering was treated as fair use when needed to access unprotected functional elements for legitimate purposes.

But distributing a reconstructed version of a copyrighted game is a very different matter, and, and most end-user license agreements forbid reverse engineering.

So no, this does not mean all software is now open source in the licensing sense.

But it may mean all software becomes increasingly inspectable in the practical sense.

That distinction is crucial.

The viewable source is not the same as permitted source.

But for attackers, modders, competitors, security researchers, and AI agents, practical viewability changes the terrain.

If you can obtain an executable, you may soon be able to understand it at a level previously reserved for expert reverse engineers.

Start with the most concrete example.

On October sixth, twenty twenty-six, Ben Thompson's Stratechery update titled Game Decompilation: Is This Legal? A Well-Trodden Path, analyzed the sudden wave of AI-assisted game decompilation.

The examples are wild.

A web browser version of the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved, reportedly with split-screen co-op and multiplayer support for up to one hundred and twenty-eight players, drew twenty thousand players in its first five hours, according to the Polygon reporting Thompson cites.

Then there are the more legally explosive examples: AI-assisted recreations or decompilations touching franchises like Fallout and Modern Warfare two.

Thompson distinguishes between two categories.

A generated Fallout New York style project may be a new game that risks trademark or copyright issues if it uses recognizable names, assets, or items like the Pip-Boy.

But the Modern Warfare two case is more directly about decompilation, using AI agents to reconstruct code from an existing executable.

The technical point is the big one.

Games are written in human-readable languages like C or C++, then compiled into machine code.

Humans have long been able to disassemble machine code into assembly, but reconstructing clean source code has traditionally been slow expert labor.

Thompson's argument is that large language models are unusually well-suited to this job.

Infer what assembly maps to proposed source, test it, validate it, and iterate.

In other words, the compiler used to be a kind of one-way door.

AI is turning it into a revolving door.

Legally, Thompson is careful.

Decompilation is not automatically illegal.

He points to Sega versus Accolade and Sony versus Connectix, where reverse engineering was treated as fair use when needed to access unprotected functional elements for legitimate purposes.

But distributing a reconstructed version of a copyrighted game is a very different matter, and, and most end-user license agreements forbid reverse engineering.

So no, this does not mean all software is now open source in the licensing sense.

But it may mean all software becomes increasingly inspectable in the practical sense.

That distinction is crucial.

The viewable source is not the same as permitted source.

But for attackers, modders, competitors, security researchers, and AI agents, practical viewability changes the terrain.

If you can obtain an executable, you may soon be able to understand it at a level previously reserved for expert reverse engineers.