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AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

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Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#31

Post by ineedasername »

spaceywilly wrote: post #11
kbar13 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you read his note i think he gives good insight as to why he wants PRs to signal AI involvement. that being said i feel like this is an intermediate step - it's really hard to review PRs that are AI slop because it's so easy for those who don't know how to use AI to create a multi-hundred/thousand line diff. but when AI is used well, it really saves time and often creates high quality work

As long as they make it easy to add a “made with AI” tag to the PR, it seems like there’s really no downside. I personally can’t imagine why someone would want to hide the fact they used AI. A contractor would not try to hide that they used an excavator to dig a hole instead of a shovel.

>I personally can’t imagine why someone would want to hide the fact they used AI.

Because of the perception that anything touched by AI must be uncreative slop made without effort. In the case of this article, why else are they asking for disclosure if not to filter and dismiss such contributions?

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#32

Post by andunie »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #16

How does this not lead to a situation where no honest person can use any AI in their submissions? Surely pull requests that acknowledge AI tooling will be given significantly less attention, on the grounds that no one wants to read work that they know is written by AI.

Isn't that a good thing?

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#33

Post by quotemstr »

voxl wrote: post #20
quotemstr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a project maintainer, you shouldn't make rules unenforceable rules that you and everyone else know people will flout. Doing so comes makes you seem impotent and diminishes the respect people have for rules in general. You might argue that by making rules, even futile ones, you at least establish expectations and take a moral stance. Well, you can make a statement without dressing it up as a rule. But you don't get…

Except you can enforce this rule some of the time. People discover that AI was used or suspect it all the time, and people admit to it after some pressure all the time. Not every time, but sometimes. The threat of being caught isn't meaningless. You can decide not to play in someone else's walled garden if you want but the least you can do is respect their rules, bare minimum of human decency.

It. doesn't. matter.

The only legitimate reason to make a rule is to produce some outcome. If your rule does not result in that outcome, of what use is the rule?

Will this rule result in people disclosing "AI" (whatever that means) contributions? Will it mitigate some kind of risk to the project? Will it lighten maintainer load?

No. It can't. People are going to use the tools anyway. You can't tell. You can't stop them. The only outcome you'll get out of a rule like this is making people incrementally less honest.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#34

Post by timeon »

luma wrote: post #28
neilv wrote: post #26

There is also IP taint when using "AI". We're just pretending that there's not. If someone came to you and said "good news: I memorized the code of all the open source projects in this space, and can regurgitate it on command", you would be smart to ban them from working on code at your company. But with "AI", we make up a bunch of rationalizations. ("I'm doing AI agentic generative AI workflow boilerplate 10x gettin…

Also ban StackOverflow and nearly any text book in the field. The reality is that programmers are going to see other programmers code.

How is that same thing?

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#35

Post by renrutal »

Waterluvian wrote: post #10

I’m not a big AI fan but I do see it as just another tool in your toolbox. I wouldn’t really care how someone got to the end result that is a PR. But I also think that if a maintainer asks you to jump before submitting a PR, you politely ask, “how high?”

I won't put it as "just another tool". AI introduces a new kind of tool where the ownership of the resulting code is not straightforward.

If, in the dystopian future, a justice court you're subjected to decides that Claude was trained on Oracle's code, and all Claude users are possibly in breach of copyright, it's easier to nuke from orbit all disclosed AI contributions.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#36

Post by Workaccount2 »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #16

How does this not lead to a situation where no honest person can use any AI in their submissions? Surely pull requests that acknowledge AI tooling will be given significantly less attention, on the grounds that no one wants to read work that they know is written by AI.

Make a knowledgeable reply and mention you used chat-gpt - comment immediately buried.

Make a knowledgeable reply and give no reference to the AI you used- comment is celebrated.

We are already barreling full speed down the "hide your AI use" path.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#37

Post by raincole »

Waterluvian wrote: post #10

I’m not a big AI fan but I do see it as just another tool in your toolbox. I wouldn’t really care how someone got to the end result that is a PR. But I also think that if a maintainer asks you to jump before submitting a PR, you politely ask, “how high?”

When one side has much more "scalability" than the other, then the other side has very strong motivation to match up.

- People use AI to write cover letters. If the companies don't filter out them automatically, they're screwed.

- Companies use AI to interview candidates. No one wants to spend their personal time talking to a robot. So the candidates start using AI to take interviews for them.

etc.

If you don't at least tell yourself that you don't allow AI PRs (even just as a white lie) you'll one day use AI to review PRs.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#38

Post by recursive »

quotemstr wrote: post #33
voxl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you can enforce this rule some of the time. People discover that AI was used or suspect it all the time, and people admit to it after some pressure all the time. Not every time, but sometimes. The threat of being caught isn't meaningless. You can decide not to play in someone else's walled garden if you want but the least you can do is respect their rules, bare minimum of human decency.

It. doesn't. matter. The only legitimate reason to make a rule is to produce some outcome. If your rule does not result in that outcome, of what use is the rule? Will this rule result in people disclosing "AI" (whatever that means) contributions? Will it mitigate some kind of risk to the project? Will it lighten maintainer load? No. It can't. People are going to use the tools anyway. You can't tell. You can't stop th…

Sometimes you can tell.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#39

Post by recursive »

estimator7292 wrote: post #15

Do I also have to disclose using tab completion? My IDE uses machine learning for completion suggestions. Do I need to disclose that I wrote a script to generate some annoying boilerplate? Or that my IDE automatically templates for loops?

If you're not sure, it's probably safer to just mention it.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#40

Post by skogweb »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #16

How does this not lead to a situation where no honest person can use any AI in their submissions? Surely pull requests that acknowledge AI tooling will be given significantly less attention, on the grounds that no one wants to read work that they know is written by AI.

I don't think this is the case. Mitchell writes that he himself uses LLMs, so it's not black and white. A PR author who has a deep understanding of their changes and used an LLM for convenience will be able to convey this without losing credibility imo
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