// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
The first vibe-coded gun is here
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Cody Wilson says his AI model can generate new gun designs for 3D printing. We saw him fire the first one.
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Since gun-rights activist and alt-right-friendly agitator Cody Wilson made the first 3D-printed firearm 13 years ago, he’s helped usher in a chaotic era of untraceable ghost guns. Now he’s claiming another first: “the first AI-made gun.” It’s called the WASP.
I stood about 20 feet away as Wilson and his sidekick clamped the WASP to a DIY test mount outside Defense Distributed headquarters in Austin, Texas. The 3D-printed .22 caliber handgun is, in reality, little more than a pistol barrel attached to a spring-loaded plastic box. Its rudimentary design bears a resemblance to Wilson’s single-shot 3D-printed “Liberator,” albeit with some quintessentially AI-generated oddities, like a wacky, bubbly grip that doesn’t quite fit a human hand. It was aimed toward a shallow green slope in the backyard of a semi-residential neighborhood. A long black string ran from its trigger to Wilson, who sat crouched about 10 feet back behind a police riot shield.
“Three. Two. One.” I braced for a thunderous crack, but instead heard only a loud click. The world’s first AI-generated gun had misfired.
“This didn’t happen last time,” Wilson, annoyed, reassured me as he carried out some quick troubleshooting. The gun’s striker had hit the cartridge, he said, but failed to set off the primer. I quietly took another step back. After some more fiddling, Wilson declared the WASP ready for a second chance. This time, pulling the string produced a sharp bang, about as loud as a firecracker. Downrange, a cardboard target had a hole ripped through its top left corner. His colleague had suggested using a life-size cutout of Joe Biden, but Wilson shot that down as “too on the nose.”
The safety test completed, Wilson then unclamped the WASP, slipped on a protective glove, took aim at the cardboard target, and squeezed the trigger himself. Another bang. This time, a miss, slightly high. The AI gun, today at least, was two for three in terms of shots successfully fired.