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AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

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Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#61

Post by zbentley »

martin-t wrote: post #51
KK7NIL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly object to anthropomorphising text transformers (e.g. "Assisted-by"). I don't think this is anthropomorphising, especially considering they also include non-LLM tools in that "Assisted-by" section. We're well past the Turing test now, whether these things are actually sentient or not is of no pragmatic importance if we can't distinguish their output from a sentient creature, especially when it comes to pr…

Would you say "assisted by vim" or "assisted by gcc"? It should be either something like "(partially/completely) generated by" or if you want to include deterministic tools, then "Tools-used:". The Turing test is an interesting thought experiment but we've seen it's easy for LLMs to sound human-like or make authoritative and convincing statements despite being completely wrong or full of nonsense. The Turing test is…

If a linter insists on a weird line of code, I’m probably commenting that line as “recommended by whatever-linter”, yes.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#62

Post by pixel_popping »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #53
pixel_popping wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why? it's a human making the PR and you can shame/ban that human anyway.

> it's a human making the PR Is it? Remember when that agent wrote a hit piece about the maintainer because he wouldn't merge it's PR?

That's a different issue actually.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#63

Post by streetfighter64 »

pixel_popping wrote: post #23
daveguy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not insane at all. Just a very useful shortcut. Not everyone wants to move fast and break shit.

I still think it's insane, why would you care about the "origin" of the code as long as there is a human accountable (that you can ban anyway)?

If your doctor told you he used an ouija board to find your diagnosis, would you care about the origin of the diagnosis or just trust that he'll be accountable for it?

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#64

Post by Chance-Device »

sarchertech wrote: post #52
Chance-Device wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the mechanism: responsibility is a social construct, it works the way people say that it works. If we all agree that a human can agree to bear the responsibility for AI outputs, and face any consequences resulting from those outputs, then that’s the whole shebang.

Sure we could change the law. It would be a stupid change to allow individuals, organizations, and companies to completely shield themselves from the consequences of risky behaviors (more than we already do) simply by assigning all liability to a fall guy.

What law exactly are you suggesting needs to be changed? How is this any different from what already happens right now, today?

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#67

Post by jdreaver »

spwa4 wrote: post #65

Why does this file have an extension of .rst? What does that even mean for the fileformat?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReStructuredText

This format really took off in the Python community in the 2000's for documentation. The Linux kernel has used it for documentation as well for a while now.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#68

Post by sarchertech »

Chance-Device wrote: post #64
sarchertech wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we could change the law. It would be a stupid change to allow individuals, organizations, and companies to completely shield themselves from the consequences of risky behaviors (more than we already do) simply by assigning all liability to a fall guy.

What law exactly are you suggesting needs to be changed? How is this any different from what already happens right now, today?

Right now it's very easy not to infringe on copyrighted code if you write the code yourself. In the vast majority of cases if you infringed it's because you did something wrong that you could have prevented (in the case where you didn't do anything wrong, inducement creation is an affirmative defense against copyright infringement).

That is not the case when using AI generated code. There is no way to use it without the chance of introducing infringing code.

Because of that if you tell a user they can use AI generated code, and they introduce infringing code, that was a foreseeable outcome of your action. In the case where you are the owner of a company, or the head of an organization that benefits from contributors using AI code, your company or organization could be liable.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#69

Post by timmmmmmay »

martin-t wrote: post #44
panzi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the output is public domain it's fine as I understand it.

This ruling is IMO/IANAL based on lawyers and judges not understanding how LLMs work internally, falling for the marketing campaign calling them "AI" and not understanding the full implications. LLM-creation ("training") involves detecting/compressing patterns of the input. Inference generates statistically probable based on similarities of patterns to those found in the "training" input. Computers don't learn or hav…

fortunately, you aren't only operating on representations, right? lemme check my Schopenhauer right quick...

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#70

Post by pixel_popping »

streetfighter64 wrote: post #63
pixel_popping wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's insane, why would you care about the "origin" of the code as long as there is a human accountable (that you can ban anyway)?

If your doctor told you he used an ouija board to find your diagnosis, would you care about the origin of the diagnosis or just trust that he'll be accountable for it?

If the Ouija board was powered by Opus, who knows :D
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