Unions of intervals in codes based on powers of sets

We prove that for every integer d 2 there exists a dense collection of subsets of nᵈ such that no two of them have a symmetric difference that may be written as the dth power of a union of at most d/2 intervals. This provides a limitation on reasonable tightenings of a question of Alon from 2023 and of a conjecture of Gowers from 2009, and investigates a direction analogous to that of recent works of Conlon, Kamcev, Leader, R\"aty and Spiegel on intervals in the Hales-Jewett theorem.