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AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

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Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#261

Post by fzeroracer »

infotainment wrote: post #251
ivanjermakov wrote: post #238

Hot take: if you can't spot any issues in the code review it's either good code, code that needs further changes, or review was not done properly. I don't see how "I used LLMs" fit here, because it means nothing to the quality of the code submitted. If such mention would mean increased reviewer attention, then every code review should include it.

Agreed -- this requirement feels less like an actually useful requirement and more a silly and performative one, which is trying to make some kind of commentary on AI use as a whole.

Spending at minimum five minutes would tell you why maintainers are implementing this change. It's because people using LLMs are spamming open source repos with fake issues, incredibly low quality but high effort to review PRs and shutting down the active communication process between reviewer and reviewee by not even understanding their own code.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#262

Post by ants_everywhere »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #247
rowanG077 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a real stretch. GPT 5 just invented new math for reference. What you are saying would be equivalent to saying that this math was obviously in some paper that mathematician did not know about. Maybe true, but it's a far reach.

This would be the first time ever that an LLM has discovered new knowledge, but the far reach is that the information does appear in the training data?

They've been doing it for a while. Gemini has also discovered new math and new algorithms.

There is an entire research field of scientific discovery using LLMs together with sub-disciplines for the various specialization. LLMs routinely discover new things.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#263

Post by wmf »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #36
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.

HN works that way but Mitchell said he isn't opposed to AI. You have to know the vibe of your environment.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#264

Post by shkkmo »

ineedasername wrote: post #72
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…

Courts (at least in the US) have already ruled that use of ingested data for training is transformative. There’s lots of details to figure, but the genie is out of the bottle. Sure it’s a big hill to climb in rethinking IP laws to align with a societal desire that generating IP continue to be a viable economic work product, but that is what’s necessary.

> Courts (at least in the US) have already ruled that use of ingested data for training is transformative

Yes, the training of the model itself is (or should be) a transformative act so you can train a model on whatever you have legal access to view.

However, that doesn't mean that the output of the model is automatically not infringing. If the model is prompted to create a copy of some copyrighted work, that is (or should be) still a violation.

Just like memorizing a book isn't infringment but reproducing a book from memory is.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#265

Post by jhanschoo »

ineedasername wrote: post #72
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…

Courts (at least in the US) have already ruled that use of ingested data for training is transformative. There’s lots of details to figure, but the genie is out of the bottle. Sure it’s a big hill to climb in rethinking IP laws to align with a societal desire that generating IP continue to be a viable economic work product, but that is what’s necessary.

An AI model's output can be transformative, but you can be unlucky enough that the LLM memorized the data that it gave you.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#266

Post by _w1tm »

ozfive wrote: post #254
ineedasername wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you have code that happens to be identical to some else's code or implements someone's proprietary algorithm, you're going to lose in court even if you claim an "AI" gave it to you. Not for a dozen lines here or there, even if it could be found and identified in a massive code base. That’s like quoting a paragraph of a book in another book, non infringing. For the second half of your comment it sounds like you’re…

What will happen when company A implements algorithm X based on AI output, company B does the same and company A claims that it is proprietary code and takes company B to court?

What has happened when the same thing happens without AI involved?

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#267

Post by gugagore »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #260
bsder wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Courts (at least in the US) have already ruled that use of ingested data for training is transformative. If you have code that happens to be identical to some else's code or implements someone's proprietary algorithm, you're going to lose in court even if you claim an "AI" gave it to you. AI is training on private Github repos and coughing them up. I've had it regurgitate a very well written piece of code to do a p…

LLMs aren't good at rote memorization. They can't even get quotations of humans right. It's easier for the LLM to rewrite an idiomatic computational geometry algorithm from scratch in a language it understands well like Python. Entire computational geometry textbooks and research papers are in its knowledge base. It doesn't have to copy some proprietary implementation.

A search for "LLM Harry Potter" would suggest that LLMs are widely understood to be proficient at rote memorization.

(I find the example of the computational geometry algorithm being a clear case of direct memorization not very compelling, in any case.)

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#268

Post by jakelazaroff »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #262
jakelazaroff wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be the first time ever that an LLM has discovered new knowledge, but the far reach is that the information does appear in the training data?

They've been doing it for a while. Gemini has also discovered new math and new algorithms. There is an entire research field of scientific discovery using LLMs together with sub-disciplines for the various specialization. LLMs routinely discover new things.

I hadn't heard of that, so I did some searching and the single source for the claim I can find is a Google white paper. That doesn't automatically mean it's false, of course, but it is curious that the only people ostensibly showing LLMs discover new things are the companies offering the LLMs.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#269

Post by wahnfrieden »

nullc wrote: post #155
wahnfrieden wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I said though. LLM output, even unreviewed and without understanding, can be a useful artifact. I do it all the time - generate code, try running it, and then if I see it works well, I can decide to review it and follow up with necessary refactoring before integrating it. Parts of that can be contributed too. We’re just learning new etiquettes for doing that productively, and that does includes testin…

If the AI slop was that valuable a project regular, who actually knows and understands the project, would be just as capable of asking the AI to produce it.

Not according to ghostty maintainer Hashimoto per above.

It takes attempts, verifying the result behaves as desired, and iterative prompting to adjust. And it takes a lot of time to wait on agents in between those steps (this work isn’t a one shot response). You’re being reductive.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#270

Post by shkkmo »

IcyWindows wrote: post #257
neilv wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think anyone who's not monetarily incentivize to pretend there are IP/Copyright issues actually thinks there are. Why do you think that about people who disagree with you? You're responding directly to someone who's said they think there's issues, and not pretending. Do you think they're lying? Did you not read what they said? And AFAICT a lot of other people think similarly to me. The perverse incentives t…

I think there are ramifications to making the argument that learning is stealing. I don't want my children to pay a license fee to their school or their textbook publishers for what they learn in school.

Learning isn't stealing, but learning can absolutely lead to stealing. (Edit: This is why bring able to demostrate that you did not learn from a copyrighted work when trying to replicate and compete with it can be an important defense.)

The amount of IP risk caused by USING (not training) AI models to produce code, especially wholesale commercial code that competes with code that was contained in the training data, is poorly understood.

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