Definitely sympathetic to their policy, but AI tooling and quality are changing quite fast. In a year I'd expect a modification of this as AI agents get better in virtually every possible way.
Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
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Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#32It's a fair policy. Getting those verbose, AI-authored walls of text is very annoying, especially when you're expected to thoroughly review it. It's like a denial-of-service attack on the human mind. I can only imagine how frustrating this can get in open projects that get a lot of contributions. However, I don't think this will discourage AI-based coding at all. In fact, I see two potential outcomes of these policie…
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If you understood the change, writing a short description of the problem and the fix yourself would be trivial.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#33Why base the decision on what tools are used by the author and not on the quality of their past contributions?
The Godot maintainers do review based on the quality of contributor's past contributions. Those becoming especially proficient can even become maintainers.
Allowing AI use by 'trusted contributors' has been suggested and discussed, but there were enough reasons against it and not enough established benefit.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting initiative. What are the guiding reasons behind these lists? I can't think of a functional reason for a no-AI policy: if it runs, it runs, regardless of who or what made it. Also, even if you avoid AI-generated slop, you can't really avoid the human-generated or human+AI-generated slop that passes your filters. Still, I can definitely think of good non-functional reasons: provenance, accountability, proof…
I think the main functional reason is that because a human hasn't written the code, its potentially more likely to have subtle hidden bugs that a human cant explain because they didn't write it, as well as large pull requests that have to be validated by a human when smaller human written ones would be better. But I think it's generally the non-functional reasons that projects are rejecting LLM-generated code. Some d…
And on top of that - no matter if you develop open-source or proprietary software, who is to guarantee the AI didn't get trained with GPL (or even worse, leaked proprietary) source code? Who is going to pay my lawyer when someone files a copyright lawsuit and all I have as an excuse is that I "AI-laundered" my code?
And some projects like WINE or ReactOS probably have to worry about that even more given they need to guarantee clean-room reverse engineering...
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#35Totally valid.
If someone thinks they're building better open source with their AI, let them fork; their AI can maintain downstream. If it's really better, people will join the fork. Good luck.
In all likelihood anyone attempting this will realize the value that a maintainer provides. On the odd chance they discover a new working model and produce better software, all the better, everyone wins.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#36Just put it behind a paywall for PR prioritization or consideration, more payment to jump the queue.
There, I solved FOSS sponsorship.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#37In many ways this makes sense. I noticed other projects struggle with this as well. AI slop spam kills time available. On the other hand ... it is a bit strange though, because what if code contributions objectively improve something? I dislike AI slop spam, but from a purely objective point of view, I am not sure it should be forbidden based on it intrinsically making a change, which COULD be an improve. Now I am al…
> what if code contributions objectively improve something?
If the contribution is complex enough, it is no longer an 'objective improvement' but rather a judgement call, and in the process becomes copyrightable. This is where the trouble lies, and why this kind of AI involvement is banned.
If it is not, for example by being a one-line fix that literally cannot be performed differently, it's a different story. Then it can be merged, viewed either as a menial change (exempt by the ban) or by transfer of ownership (the reviewer becomes the effective author) because it is not copyrightable.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#38It's a fair policy. Getting those verbose, AI-authored walls of text is very annoying, especially when you're expected to thoroughly review it. It's like a denial-of-service attack on the human mind. I can only imagine how frustrating this can get in open projects that get a lot of contributions. However, I don't think this will discourage AI-based coding at all. In fact, I see two potential outcomes of these policie…
> It's like a denial-of-service attack on the human mind.
I think this may be an example of deliberate hostile design, attempting to force users to adopt LLM based solutions to then summarise the vast output. Pushing back against AI contributions as such in this context makes sense, especially in software with an existing proven track record of great value delivery like Godot.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#39[dead]
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#40The foundation points out something that has always been true, but AI has really brought to the forefront, that any contributor, including AI, could potentially not be relied on to maintain this patch in the future.
This is the core of the issue, not that someone uses AI, but that it’s just one of many smells a patch can have that indicates someone doesn’t understand what they’re submitting. You could be breaking variable naming conventions, changing APIs you shouldn’t, making amateur language mistakes, all indicate that yes, maybe the patch does work, but that there are other good reasons to reject it.
A way around this might be to mark a PR as rejected because of AI and then ask the author to point out some part of it they’re particularly proud of and explain in their own words, not a wall of AI text, what this does and why they like it. Just something where the author has to show that they have something an AI can’t, namely taste and an opinion.