AI-Powered Browser Just Generates Every Website From Scratch (xda-developers.com) 56
XDA Developers reports:
On July 22, a Google DeepMind engineer, Vidy Thatte, shared a snippet of a browser he built that "treats every URL as a prompt and generates a site from scratch" on his X account. Just a few days later, he shared a TestFlight link to let iPhone users try it for themselves. The browser he launched is called Gem, and it's a browser that doesn't really...browse.
Instead of fetching a webpage from a server the way Chrome or Safari would, Gem hands whatever URL you type over to Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite model and asks it to generate a webpage on the spot. If you enter a real address, it builds its own interpretation of that site rather than loading the actual thing. If you enter an address that doesn't exist, Gemini simply invents a website to fill the gap. In other words, you're not visiting the internet so much as browsing one the model dreams up as you go...
Thatte's reasoning was that with a model as fast and cheap as Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, there's almost no practical difference anymore between loading a website and generating a brand-new one on the fly... Given that this tool is powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and it's just a side project rather than a full-fledged tool, it doesn't come with Gemini access baked in. Gem requires you to bring your own Gemini API key to get it working. Every URL you enter fires off a request to the model, so Gem needs a key linked to your Google account to actually generate anything, with the usage billed to you. You can grab a key for free from Google AI Studio, paste it into Gem's settings, and you're ready to start typing URLs. While you can get started for free, I ran into the limits within two minutes of playing around. So, I did need to enable billing on my API key and decided to load $10 into it.
While the blogger's own site seemed to only get the Gemini logo, tapping it revealed nearly two dozen remixing options. (Dark mode, Reader, Neubrutalist, Broadsheet, Blueprint, Comic book, Punk zine, Notebook, Chalkboard, Receipt, Teletext, System 7, Wes Anderson, Cyber neon, Clay, Frosted, Geocities, Matrix, Museum, Windows 95, Terminal, Vaporwave, and Hide images...) "The frontend morphed before my eyes. Every new edit took practically no time to load, and within a second or two, the same XDA articles would reappear wearing a completely different skin..." For another site, it kept the article headlines, but then rewrote all the text!
And after entering an address they knew didn't exist — their own name — in two seconds the browser whipped up a slick portfolio "genuinely been better than some of what those tools produced with far more time and context to work with." But its link to a LinkedIn profile led to a lookalike page, because Gem "had simply generated its own version of it, complete with a made-up follower number and details I never wrote...."
Instead of fetching a webpage from a server the way Chrome or Safari would, Gem hands whatever URL you type over to Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite model and asks it to generate a webpage on the spot. If you enter a real address, it builds its own interpretation of that site rather than loading the actual thing. If you enter an address that doesn't exist, Gemini simply invents a website to fill the gap. In other words, you're not visiting the internet so much as browsing one the model dreams up as you go...
Thatte's reasoning was that with a model as fast and cheap as Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, there's almost no practical difference anymore between loading a website and generating a brand-new one on the fly... Given that this tool is powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and it's just a side project rather than a full-fledged tool, it doesn't come with Gemini access baked in. Gem requires you to bring your own Gemini API key to get it working. Every URL you enter fires off a request to the model, so Gem needs a key linked to your Google account to actually generate anything, with the usage billed to you. You can grab a key for free from Google AI Studio, paste it into Gem's settings, and you're ready to start typing URLs. While you can get started for free, I ran into the limits within two minutes of playing around. So, I did need to enable billing on my API key and decided to load $10 into it.
While the blogger's own site seemed to only get the Gemini logo, tapping it revealed nearly two dozen remixing options. (Dark mode, Reader, Neubrutalist, Broadsheet, Blueprint, Comic book, Punk zine, Notebook, Chalkboard, Receipt, Teletext, System 7, Wes Anderson, Cyber neon, Clay, Frosted, Geocities, Matrix, Museum, Windows 95, Terminal, Vaporwave, and Hide images...) "The frontend morphed before my eyes. Every new edit took practically no time to load, and within a second or two, the same XDA articles would reappear wearing a completely different skin..." For another site, it kept the article headlines, but then rewrote all the text!
And after entering an address they knew didn't exist — their own name — in two seconds the browser whipped up a slick portfolio "genuinely been better than some of what those tools produced with far more time and context to work with." But its link to a LinkedIn profile led to a lookalike page, because Gem "had simply generated its own version of it, complete with a made-up follower number and details I never wrote...."
Great for The End of The World (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or a real generation ship on a fake space voyage. Ascension [wikipedia.org]
Not sure if this already exists but (Score:5, Funny)
www.chickscoveredincheddar.com
Re: (Score:3)
I understand what you are seeking, but I am more of a Gruyere man myself.
Re: (Score:2)
www.chickscoveredincheddar.com
I found it at a different URL: https://www.allrecipes.com/rec... [allrecipes.com]
matrix (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
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Well chopping ones fingers is rather risky. But other methods you pointed out were good. I would also add:
Look at a second indicator on a clock. Check whether it progresses well.
Try to look closer at something to see more and more details (are the details expected, are they stable in time).
Try to influence the environment just by wanting it to change. If it is a dream you likely can do it. E.g. add or remove an object from a scene just by willing it.
Check whether physics laws hold in general. E.g. jump up
Re: (Score:2)
Try to influence the environment just by wanting it to change. If it is a dream you likely can do it. E.g. add or remove an object from a scene just by willing it.
Wait - most people don't have telekinesis like I do? This changes everything!
Re: (Score:2)
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
Neo: Are... are you high right now?
Morpheus: Uhh... a little bit-but the question still appli-
Neo: Go home, Rick, it's late.
Morpheus: Don't call me by my slave name!
Neo: Goodnight, Rick.
yeah, sure, whatever (Score:4, Interesting)
old: dead internet theory
bold: dead internet mandate
Reads like a Con man movie. (Score:1)
Joe, I need a full background for me under the name "Ronald Rump". Make it seem like I am a billionaire that made my money from hotels and casinos. Oh, and make Vana seem like she is my ex-wife and give Melody a background of slavic model that I married late in life. Countess can pretend to be my daughter.
Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Can it generate bank sites where people an enter their user names and passwords?
If yes, I take 2.
Re:Google fail (Score:5, Informative)
The fact of the matter is that it sounds a lot like it is actually loading the website, just not directly from the server. This is just another form of caching. AI models are mostly just a lossy way of compressing the input data, which includes basically the whole web. It's highly unlikely this is creating a web site from scratch, it's just coughing the compressed data about that site up from the model and filling in and/or re-interpreting. Yeah, whoever thinks this is useful is an idiot.
Re: Google fail (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to imagine a greater waste of resources/electricity...
Re: Google fail (Score:1)
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None of which requires bypassing downloading the actual, current page in favor of whatever tokenized version the AI model has.
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A mildly fun way to waste energy... (Score:3)
I guess next up is a phone where whatever number you dial, the number will be used as a seed for a randomly generated AI "personality" to talk to.
And of course you can extend that concept to live TV (with unlimited number of channels) as well, if you really want to burn through "tokens" at maximum speed.
Re: A mildly fun way to waste energy... (Score:2)
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You can make money with that phone. It's not only that phone sex is fake anyway, but people are already paying a lot of money for AI roleplay (spicy or not). If you offer that by phone, you'll have people paying for that. Also have a look at the MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit ... I bet some of them are waiting for you to realize the idea.
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I think it's pretty clear that this system is not random and it's not just using the pure URL as a cue. It is actually browsing for the website, just not on the actual servers, rather the compressed copy that exists in the AIs model. It regurgitates that and fills in and reinterprets the missing detail. So, this is more like you dial a number, then it looks up whose number it is and all the people who could be answering the phone, then simulates that person using whatever information it has in its model abo
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I guess it could strip out ads and format things for better readability?
IDK, I could see a *use* for it, but it seems like a real brute force, high cost way of doing things.
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I guess next up is a phone where whatever number you dial, the number will be used as a seed for a randomly generated AI "personality" to talk to.
That sounds like a kids toy I wouldn't be surprised to see in the store at any point in the future. Reminds me of those toy phones that would play canned messages, but pop in a small LLM for the replies.
Great project (Score:2)
for April Fool's Day.
So now it appears ... (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2)
Do. Not. Want. (Score:2)
Want none of it. Nunavut.
don't get it (Score:2)
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I'd say: fun.
On the other hand this could (if it would take more than the URL for context) also be a novel way to use LLM. There were already tries to replace the chat-frontend by something looking more like web 2.0 websites with tiles that are the way to the next "page" by suggesting follow-ups. Currently nothing seems to beat the chat idea and people like it, though.
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What is the point of this other to burn more AI credits?
To burn hydrocarbons and change the climate. Obviously!
I'm trying to go the other way; make scripts and programs for everything I can
You mean like old fashioned code that just does something without having an LLM to hallucinate the result? That is so 2022.
Not a novel idea (Score:2)
People did this already (using local webservers) for reddit when LLMs first got capable enough. It's hard to tell the difference, and that's the the LLM's fault ...
Interpretive Motion. (Score:2)
If you enter a real address, it builds its own interpretation of that site rather than loading the actual thing.
Just wait till someone enters pornhub.
Re: Interpretive Motion. (Score:2)
There is the core of a good idea here (Score:2)
Re: There is the core of a good idea here (Score:1)
Thank you.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Playboy.com?
What will I get? What might AI impress me with?
Asking for a friend.
Really.
I grew up on dairy farms. Hef and I have rarely had a meeting of minds. But it sure seems to me to be a interesting experiment. :-;
Re: There is the core of a good idea here (Score:1)
And I find it even more amazing that my post showed up under this comment instead of the penultimate one
Re: There is the core of a good idea here (Score:1)
And now, in living text, it's where I put it.
I knew I shouldn't have responded to a thread that only had 0 comments.
Next time I'll wait a bit, I guess.
Gee, Mister Plato, that's a neat cave! (Score:3)
They can't count (Score:2)
Gem requires iOS 26+ (Score:1)
End of social media as we know it (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:1)
Maybe it can generate an ad for something I want - for the first time ever in thirty years!
so Ted Chiang was right... (Score:1)
...a LLM _*is* just a lossy JPEG of the internet..
Keep me in my bubble please! (Score:2)
Is this what is feeding Google search lately? (Score:2)
Now I understand how Google search results are full of those AI slop websites.
Google: "Hey folks, are you madly in love with Google search results lately? Can't get enough of Google AI slop? Here is a product that has pulled right out of the guts of our search engine, so you can enjoy endless AI slop."
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Yeah, this is exactly what the internet is now. Some low cost model generating low quality results to your queries. It might be cached so you get similar results for the same query.
Penisland.com (Score:2)