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Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

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Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#71

Post by amake »

AJ007 wrote: post #63
benlivengood wrote: post #35

Open source and libre/free software are particularly vulnerable to a future where AI-generated code is ruled to be either infringing or public domain. In the former case, disentangling AI-edits from human edits could tie a project up in legal proceedings for years and projects don't have any funding to fight a copyright suit. Specifically, code that is AI-generated and subsequently modified or incorporated in the res…

I understand what experienced developers don't want random AI contributions from no-knowledge "developers" contributing to a project. In any situation, if a human is review AI code line by line that would tie up humans for years, even ignoring anything legally. #1 There will be no verifiable way to prove something was AI generated beyond early models. #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will no…

> #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will not be competitive with AI assisted or written projects

Still waiting to see evidence of AI-driven projects eating the lunch of "traditional" projects.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#72

Post by SchemaLoad »

acedTrex wrote: post #58

Oh hey, the thing I predicted in my blog titled "yes i will judge you for using AI" happened lol Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. LLMs throw that entire concept on its head by presenting code that has competent markers but none of the backing experience. It is a very very jarring experience for experienced indiv…

I've started seeing this at work with coworkers using LLMs to generate code reviews. They submit comments which are way above their skill level which almost trick you in to thinking they are correct since only a very skilled developer would make these suggestions. And then ultimately you end up wasting tons of time proving how these suggestions are wrong. Spending far more time than the person pasting the suggestions spent to generate them.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#73

Post by alluro2 »

andy99 wrote: post #41
compton93 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to review code the author doesn't understand This really bothers me. I've had people ask me to do some task except they get AI to provide instructions on how to do the task and send me the instructions, rather than saying "Hey can you please do X". It's insulting.

Had someone higher up ask about something in my area of expertise. I said I didn't think is was possible, he followed up with a chatGPT conversation he had where it "gave him some ideas that we could use as an approach", as if that was some useful insight. This is the same people that think that "learning to code" is a translation issue they don't have time for as opposed to experience they don't have.

A friend experienced a similar thing at work - he gave a well-informed assessment of why something is difficult to implement and it would take a couple of weeks, based on the knowledge of the system and experience with it - only for the manager to reply within 5 min with a screenshot of an (even surprisingly) idiotic ChatGPT reply, and a message along the lines of "here's how you can do it, I guess by the end of the day".

I know several people like this, and it seems they feel like they have god powers now - and that they alone can communicate with "the AI" in this way that is simply unreachable by the rest of the peasants.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#75

Post by blibble »

AJ007 wrote: post #63
benlivengood wrote: post #35

Open source and libre/free software are particularly vulnerable to a future where AI-generated code is ruled to be either infringing or public domain. In the former case, disentangling AI-edits from human edits could tie a project up in legal proceedings for years and projects don't have any funding to fight a copyright suit. Specifically, code that is AI-generated and subsequently modified or incorporated in the res…

I understand what experienced developers don't want random AI contributions from no-knowledge "developers" contributing to a project. In any situation, if a human is review AI code line by line that would tie up humans for years, even ignoring anything legally. #1 There will be no verifiable way to prove something was AI generated beyond early models. #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will no…

> #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will not be competitive with AI assisted or written projects

"competitive", meaning: "most features/lines of code emitted" might matter to a PHB or Microsoft

but has never mattered to open source

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#76

Post by dijksterhuis »

wyldfire wrote: post #13

I understand where this comes from but I think it's a mistake. I agree it would be nice if there were "well settled law" regarding AI and copyright, probably relatively few rulings and next to zero legislation on which to base their feelings. In addition to a policy to reject contributions from AI, I think it may make sense to point out places where AI generated content can be used. For example - how much of QEMU pro…

It's a simpler solution is just to wait until legal situation is clearer.

QEMU is (mostly) GPL 2.0 licensed, meaning (most) code contributions need to be GPL 2.0 compatible [0]. Let's say, hypothetically, there's a code contribution added by some patch involving gen AI code which is derived/memorised/copied from non-GPL compatible code [1]. Then, hypothetically, a legal case sets precedent that gen AI FOSS code must re-apply the license of the original derived/memorised/copied code. QEMU maintainers would probably need to roll back all those incompatible code contributions. After some time, those code contributions could have ended up with downstream callers which also need to be rewritten (even in CI code).

It might be possible to first say "only CI code which is clearly labelled as 'DO NOT RE-USE: AI' or some such". But the maintainers would still need to go through and rewrite those parts of the CI code if this hypothetical plays out. Plus it adds extra work to reviews and merge processes etc.

it's just less work and less drama for everyone involved to say "no thank you (for now)".

----

caveat: IANAL, and licensing is not my specific expertise (but i would quite like it to be one day)

[0]: https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/LICENSE

[1]: e.g. No license / MPL / Apache / Aritistic / Creative Commons https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwa...

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#77

Post by phire »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #22

Interesting. Harder line than the LLVM one found at https://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#ai-generated-cont... I'm very old man shouting at clouds about this stuff. I don't want to review code the author doesn't understand and I don't want to merge code neither of us understand.

I do use GitHub copilot on my personal projects.

But I refuse to use it as anything more than a fancy autocomplete. If it suggests code that's pretty close to what I was about to type anyway, I accept it.

This ensures that I still understand my code, that there shouldn't be any hallucination derived bugs, [1] and there really shouldn't be any questions about copyright if I was about to type it.

I find using copilot this way speeds me up. Not really because my typing is slow, it's more that I have a habit of getting bored and distracted while typing. Copilot helps me get to the next thinking/debugging part sooner.

My brain really comprehend the idea that anyone would not want to not understand their code. Especially if they are going to submit it as a PR.

And I'm a little annoyed that the existence of such people is resulting in policies that will stop me from using LLMs as autocomplete when submitting to open source projects.

I have tried using copilot in other ways. I'd love for it to be able to do menial refactoring tasks for me. But every-time I experiment, it seems to fall off the rails so fast. Or it just ends up slower than what I could do manually because it has to re-generate all my code instead of just editing it.

[1] Though I find it really interesting that if I'm in the middle of typing a bug, copilot is very happy to autocomplete it in its buggy form. Even when the bug is obvious from local context, like I've typoed a variable name.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#78

Post by stirfish »

tines wrote: post #67
candiddevmike wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a boring dystopia where everyone is given hallucinated tasks from LLMs that may in some crazy way be feasible but aren't, and you can't argue that they're impossible without being fired since leadership lacks critical thinking.

Reminds me of the wonderful skit, The Expert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

And the solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7MIJP90biM

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#79

Post by bfLives »

kazinator wrote: post #19
wyldfire wrote: post #13

I understand where this comes from but I think it's a mistake. I agree it would be nice if there were "well settled law" regarding AI and copyright, probably relatively few rulings and next to zero legislation on which to base their feelings. In addition to a policy to reject contributions from AI, I think it may make sense to point out places where AI generated content can be used. For example - how much of QEMU pro…

There is a well settled practice in computing that you just don't plagiarize code. Even a small snippet. Even if copyright law would consider such a small thing "fair use".

> There is a well settled practice in computing that you just don't plagiarize code. Even a small snippet.

I think way many developers use StackOverflow suggests otherwise.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#80

Post by acedTrex »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #72
acedTrex wrote: post #58

Oh hey, the thing I predicted in my blog titled "yes i will judge you for using AI" happened lol Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. LLMs throw that entire concept on its head by presenting code that has competent markers but none of the backing experience. It is a very very jarring experience for experienced indiv…

I've started seeing this at work with coworkers using LLMs to generate code reviews. They submit comments which are way above their skill level which almost trick you in to thinking they are correct since only a very skilled developer would make these suggestions. And then ultimately you end up wasting tons of time proving how these suggestions are wrong. Spending far more time than the person pasting the suggestions…

Yep 100%, it is something I have also observed. Frankly has been frustrating to the point I spun up a quick one off html site to rant/get my thoughts out. https://jaysthoughts.com/aithoughts1
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