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AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

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Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#461

Post by strogonoff »

zvr wrote: post #460
strogonoff wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt you would ever license any specific songs as a cafe business. You should be able to pay a fixed fee to a PRO and have a blanket license to play almost anything. Is it so expensive in the US, or perhaps they do not know that this is an option? If the former, and those cover artists help those bars keep their expenses low and offer you better experience while charging less—working with the system, withou…

The example I was referring to was not in the US. A restaurant / cafe may pay a fixed fee and get access to a specific catalog of songs (performances). The fee depends on what the catalog contains. As you can imagine, paying for the right to only play instrumental versions of songs (no singers, no lyrics) is significantly cheaper. Or, having performances of songs by unknown people.

Two countries where I know how it works from a venue business owner perspective work this way. The fees seemed pretty mild, that’s why I asked if it’s too expensive in your country (which I guess is not US).

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#462

Post by selinkocalar »

This is such an important conversation. At Delve, we use AI extensively to automate compliance workflows, but we're always transparent about it with our customers. The real question isn't whether AI was used, but whether it adds genuine value. Does the AI actually solve a problem? Is it making people's lives easier? Can you explain how it works? The best AI tools feel invisible - they just make complex tasks simple. The worst ones make you constantly aware you're dealing with AI because they're clunky or unreliable. Transparency builds trust. If your AI tooling is genuinely helpful, you should be proud to talk about it.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#463

Post by asdff »

Filligree wrote: post #428
asdff wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking screen recorder but a log file where I could be given it and use it for input and repeat the work exactly as it was done. Sort of like how one could do the same with their bash history file to repeat an initially exploratory analysis effort using the same exact commands. I'm surprised that isn't already a capability given the business interest with AI. One would think they would like to cache these pr…

Does that exist for VSCode? If not, why would it exist for VSCode + a variety of CLI tools + AI? Anyhow, saving the exact prompt isn't super useful; the response is stochastic.

VScode has a history capability. You can't save a prompt + a seed to recover the response? That seems like it would be highly useful.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#464

Post by KritVutGu »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #145
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's just different kinds of people. I have used Copilot to generate code I barely understand (stuff for a microcontroller project, nothing important) but I wouldn't in a thousand years say I wrote it. I broadly understand how it works, and like, if someone wanted to see it, I'd show them. But like... how can you take pride in something you didn't make?

Not making the thing is a point in favor of LLMs for some of these people I suspect. So the pride in work thing is just not high on the list of incentives. I don’t get it at all. Feels like modernity is often times just inventing pale shadows of things with more addictive hooks to induce needlessly dependent behavior.

> the pride in work thing is just not high on the list of incentives

Thanks for putting it so well.

That is what hurts. A lot. Taking pride out of work, especially creative work, makes the world a worse place; it makes life less worth living.

> inventing pale shadows of things

Yes.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#465

Post by KritVutGu »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #135
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer amount of entitlement on display by very pro-AI people genuinely boggles the mind.

They genuinely believe their use of chatbots is equivalent to multiple years of production experience in a language. They want to erase that distinction (“democratize”) so they can have the same privileges and status without the work. Otherwise, what’s the harm in saying AI guides you to the solution if you can attest to it being a good solution?

> Otherwise, what’s the harm in saying AI guides you to the solution if you can attest to it being a good solution?

For one: it threatens to make an entire generation of programmers lazy and stupid. They stop exercising their creative muscle. Writing and reviewing are different activities; both should be done continuously.

This is perfectly observable with a foreign language. If you stop actively using a foreign language after learning it really well, your ability to speak it fades pretty quickly, while your ability to understand it fades too, but less quickly.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#466

Post by KritVutGu »

gizmo686 wrote: post #173
blurbleblurble wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. I have 20 years of dev experience and also am using these tools. I won't commit slop. I'm open to being transparent about my usage of AI but tbh right now there's so much bias and vitriol coming from people afraid of these new tools that in the haze of their fear I don't trust people will actually take the time to neutrally determine whether or not the code is actually slop. I've had manually wr…

> I've had manually written, well thought through, well conceived, rough around the edges code get called "AI slop" by a colleague (who I very much respect and have a good relationship with) who admittedly hadn't had a chance to thoroughly understand the code yet. This is the core problem with AI that makes so many people upset. In the old days, if you get a substantial submission, you know a substantial amount of ef…

> The existence of AI slop fundamentally breaks these assumptions. That is why we need enforced social norms around disclosure.

Exactly! The code used double as "proof of work". Well-formed language used to double as "proof of thinking". And that's what AI breaks: it speaks, but doesn't think. And my core point is that language that does not originate from well-reasoned human effort (i.e., from either writing the language directly, or from writing such code manually that generates the language deterministically, and for known reasons/intents), does not deserve human attention. Even if the "observable behavior" of such language (when executed as code) looks "alright".

And because I further think that no code should be accepted without human review (which excludes both not reviewing AI-generated code at all and having some other AI review the AI-generated code), I conclude that AI-generated code can never be accepted.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#467

Post by KritVutGu »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #187
gizmo686 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've had manually written, well thought through, well conceived, rough around the edges code get called "AI slop" by a colleague (who I very much respect and have a good relationship with) who admittedly hadn't had a chance to thoroughly understand the code yet. This is the core problem with AI that makes so many people upset. In the old days, if you get a substantial submission, you know a substantial amount of ef…

We need better social norms about disclosure, but maybe those don't need to be about "whether or not you used LLMs" and might have more to do with "how well you understand the code you are opening a PR for" (or are reviewing, for that matter). Normalize draft PRs and sharing big messes of code you're not quite sure about but want to start a conversation about. Normalize admitting that you don't fully understand the c…

> Normalize draft PRs and sharing big messes of code you're not quite sure about but want to start a conversation about. Normalize admitting that you don't fully understand the code you've written / are tasked with reviewing and that this is perfectly fine and doesn't reflect poorly on you at all, in fact it reflects humility and a collaborative spirit.

Such behaviors can only be normalized in a classroom / ramp-up / mentorship-like setting. Which is very valid, BUT:

- Your reviewers are always overloaded, so they need some official mandate / approval to mentor newcomers. This is super important, and should be done everywhere.

- Even with the above in place: because you're being mentored with great attention to detail, you owe it to your reviewer not to drown them in AI slop. You must honor them by writing every single line that you ask them to spend their attention on yourself. Ultimately, their educative efforts are invested IN YOU, not (only) in the code that may finally be merged. I absolutely refuse to review or otherwise correct AI slop, while at the same time I'm 100% committed to transfer whatever knowledge I may have to another human.

Fuck AI.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#468

Post by KritVutGu »

moron4hire wrote: post #172
KritVutGu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think this is an excellent example of how software is different from everything else that is copyright-able. If you look at how GenAI is being applied to "the arts" and how completely destructive it is to the visual mediums, it is clearly a completely different beast to code. "The artists" of visual art don't want AI trained on their work and competing with their work. I completely understand. The point of art is t…

It is precisely the same existential threat, to code and to software developers, in my eyes. I take the exact same pride in my code (which I want to be free software, BTW) as artists do in their art. Writing code is a form of self-expression and self-realization for me, and as such, it is completely personal, between myself, and those (humans) who read my code.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#469

Post by jama211 »

eschaton wrote: post #133
jama211 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, building systems where we’re specifically incentivised not to disclose ai use?

Submitting a PR also means you’re not submitting code copied from elsewhere without calling that out and ensuring license compatibility, we don’t refer to that as incentivizing lying about the origin of submitted code. Fraud and misrepresentation are always options for contributors, at some point one needs to trust that they’re adhering to the rules that they agreed to adhere to.

If you removed all PR’s from the world that included copy-pasted code from stackoverflow that wasn’t mentioned, you’d be removing a LOT of PR’s. It’s not even considered a problem to copy and paste code from stackoverflow among most devs as long as you have reviewed it and modified it where necessary for your purposes. AI should be treated like that, if it’s not, people will just hide it and do it anyway.

Re: AI tooling must be disclosed for contributions

#470

Post by eschaton »

jama211 wrote: post #469
eschaton wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Submitting a PR also means you’re not submitting code copied from elsewhere without calling that out and ensuring license compatibility, we don’t refer to that as incentivizing lying about the origin of submitted code. Fraud and misrepresentation are always options for contributors, at some point one needs to trust that they’re adhering to the rules that they agreed to adhere to.

If you removed all PR’s from the world that included copy-pasted code from stackoverflow that wasn’t mentioned, you’d be removing a LOT of PR’s. It’s not even considered a problem to copy and paste code from stackoverflow among most devs as long as you have reviewed it and modified it where necessary for your purposes. AI should be treated like that, if it’s not, people will just hide it and do it anyway.

Just because many developers are irresponsible in their approach to incorporating others’ works doesn’t change how intellectual property actually works, and any project that actually cares (whether open or proprietary) will ensure that people understand their responsibilities.

What you’re saying is essentially the code equivalent of “I found this image via Google search so of course it’s OK to put into a presentation, it’s on the web so that means I can use it.” This may not be looked at too hard for an investor presentation, but if you’re doing a high profile event like Apple’s WWDC you’ll learn quickly that all assets require clearance and “I found it on the web” won’t cut it—you’ll be made to use a different image or, if you actually present with the unlicensed image, you could be disciplined or outright fired for causing the company liability.

It’s amazing how many people in this industry think it’s OK to just wing this shit and even commit outright fraud just because it’s convenient.

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