You Can Build an App With ChatGPT in 60 Minutes

TL;DR: Today we’re releasing a new episode of our podcast How Do You Use ChatGPT? I go in-depth with Geoffrey Litt, a researcher at the lab Ink & Switch, on the future of software and AI. As we talk, we build our own app together in 60 minutes using ChatGPT and Replit. Watch on X or YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Geoffrey Litt wants you to build software—whoever you are. Not just if you’re a seasoned software engineer in San Francisco, but even if you have minimal—or zero—coding knowledge.

He’s a researcher who’s working on creating a future where anyone can make changes to the software they use—what he calls malleable software. I’ve been writing about similar topics—like how AI might turn everyone into a developer and upend SaaS business models—for a while, and it was great to have Geoffrey on the show to discuss our overlapping ideas.

We talked about how ChatGPT enables anyone to build single-use apps and expands the horizon of who gets to build things. We even put our money where our mouth is: As we talked, we built an app together in ChatGPT and Replit.

It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had recording a podcast episode, and if you’re interested at all in the future of software and AI, it’s a must-watch.

Here’s a taste of what we talk about.

Coding is getting easier—and much faster. ChatGPT has the potential to make coding possible for novice coders and make coding drastically easier—or more efficient—for seasoned pros. “A lot of the time it's actually faster now for me to just make the thing that has the tiny features that I need than to go try to Google which one is the best and learn how to use it,” Geoffrey says.
ChatGPT as a muse, not an oracle. Geoffrey wants people to treat ChatGPT like an in-house consultant: “It's like a designer or or an engineer—the earlier you bring them in, the more they can contribute to the ideas and the more context they build up.”
The benefits of a coding plan. Big projects necessitate ample planning. “If I'm going to spend six months on a huge project, I better have a plan when I start,” Geoffrey says. That’s true for ChatGPT, too. Providing a plan helps clue the chatbot into your ambitions.
Don’t waste time reading the code. Geoffrey says if you’re working off ChatGPT code, just run it and see what happens. Don’t bother poring over the code until you know if it works or not. “It's a waste of time,” he says. “I would rather just see what it did and use the thing.”
The future is “modding and mixing.” If software isn’t doing what you need, the answer currently is usually to start from scratch. “Often what I actually would prefer is to start with an app that someone else made that's almost right, but I just need to make a small tweak,” Geoffrey says. With malleable software, he says tinkering could become the new normal.
“Effortless flow.” Building an app together was easy and fun. That’s what we both want coding experiences to be like. “LLM-based tools are sort of on a path to enabling that for way more people in way more situations,” Geoffrey says.

You can check out the episode on Twitter/X, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Links and timestamps are below:

Watch on X
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Spotify (make sure to follow to help us rank!)
Listen on Apple Podcasts

Timestamps:

Intro 1:03
What is malleable software? 1:36
Who gets to make software on the web 8:06
Deciding what app to build. 14:50
Starting on our app. 22:06
Don’t read the code first. 31:07
Starting from scratch could soon be a thing of the past. 47:55
Getting past those final error messages 55:50
Voila! An app. 1:03:31
Effortless flow. 1:05:50

What do you use ChatGPT for? Have you found any interesting or surprising use cases? We want to hear from you—and we might even interview you. Reply here to talk to me!

Miss an episode? Catch up on my recent conversations with Waymark founder Nathan Labenz, Notion engineer Linus Lee, writer Nat Eliason, and Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia and learn how they use ChatGPT.