Compilation translates code into machine instructions, stripping out variable names, comments, and structure. Decompilation tries to reverse that — reconstructing something readable from raw binaries.

It's hard because compilation is lossy. Compilers collapse expressions and rename variables to generic placeholders, producing output that requires hours of human interpretation per function.

AI fits this problem unusually well because decompilation has a built-in answer key: you can run the reconstructed code and check whether it behaves identically to the original. An AI agent can write a guess, test it, observe the difference, revise, and loop — unattended, for hours. Game modders are already using this to revive classic titles, cutting multi-year projects to weeks. That same capability — AI reading software it was never meant to see — is what's making lawyers nervous about intellectual property, and security researchers excited about finding hidden vulnerabilities.