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Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

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Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#111

Post by fendy3002 »

dspillett wrote: post #97
watwut wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my experience reviewing, most contributors never read the policies, especially those making a "quick AI PR". I don't expect the new policy to change this much. The policy allows the reviewer to reject it on the "AI" grounds.

> allows the reviewer to reject it on the "AI" grounds … but still unfortunately leaves reviewers having to spend time checking submissions and rejecting them.

oh but it'll be very2 helpful and the time spent will be short. It's easy to verify:

* new contributor?

* more than 10 files affected (higher count are more valid)?

* wall of text on description without screenshots, etc?

just close the PR as AI, and then the contributor can challenge it if they feel it should not.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#112

Post by jon-wood »

dspillett wrote: post #97
watwut wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my experience reviewing, most contributors never read the policies, especially those making a "quick AI PR". I don't expect the new policy to change this much. The policy allows the reviewer to reject it on the "AI" grounds.

> allows the reviewer to reject it on the "AI" grounds … but still unfortunately leaves reviewers having to spend time checking submissions and rejecting them.

At least half the people firing off LLM generated PRs will have left the "Coauthored-by: Claude" line on it allowing automated rejections.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#113

Post by signa11 »

gitowiec wrote: post #20

"If your feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, it becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review," the Foundation said. That is to the point!

zig's 'contributor poker' is sounding more and more prescient.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#114

Post by TomasBM »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #27
TomasBM wrote: post #18

Earlier 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…

> Still, I can definitely think of good non-functional reasons For many people that’s enough of a reason. As for functional, you can see it all up and down this comment thread. People don’t check their work and leave these massive walls of text and codebases that someone else has to audit/cleanup. It’s exhausting. Too many people offload their work to AI and put zero effort into vetting the results, which punctually…

I think that's completely fair.

There are also plenty of valid personal reasons for refusing to generate code with AI - learning-by-doing and ownership of the result being the main ones, IMO.

> everybody wants to let AI do their work for them, but nobody wants to be downstream of AI work.

This is also true in my experience. But in my work, I found that I don't care how the code or comment was generated, as long as it doesn't try to overload my brain with irrelevant and obfuscated things, and as long as the person is not pretending that it's true, verified or their own creation (when it isn't).

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#115

Post by qsera »

TomasBM wrote: post #87
dirkc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define "if it runs, it runs"?

If you have some requirements/specifications, and the piece of code fits them, then it runs. Alternatively, if you have some vague idea [1] about what you expect to see/have, and the running code satisfies that idea, then it also runs. Obviously, there are plenty of non-functional specs (e.g., security, cleanness, readability) that a code should probably fulfill before one finds it acceptable, but these are also not…

But it is hard to verify it, right?

If you use rsync clone by an LLM to copy a million files, will you bother to verify every single one was copied correctly?

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#116

Post by terminalbraid »

dude250711 wrote: post #59

If AI is so good, there should be hundreds of new engines far exceeding Godot. Yet all that is being produced is piggy-backing unchecked vibe-slop.

It's also telling with all the comments of "just wait a few months the models are getting so much better" which has been said for years and will continue to be said for years. It's the same with any other scam with tenuous value (see cryptocurrency).

At some point you just call it failed.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#117

Post by peepee1982 »

TomasBM wrote: post #7

It'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…

If a commit is written by AI but reads as authored by a human, the developer has done their job and nothing will be flagged.

If commits written by AI wouldn't be substantially different, there would be no need to reject them.

So I agree with you that it won't discourage AI-based coding. But that's not even the intent.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#118

Post by qsera »

gitowiec wrote: post #20

"If your feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, it becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review," the Foundation said. That is to the point!

And the worse thing is that their feed back probably goes into the training of the next LLM. So more free labor for the AI companies.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#119

Post by JodieBenitez »

eschaton wrote: post #69
JodieBenitez wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"suspects".... that sounds error prone. And I read it like "we don't want AI generated stuff unless we can't tell the difference".

How do they enforce that contributions aren’t copied and pasted from AGPLv3 or proprietary codebases? The honor system and intuition and occasionally flat out asking people. Do you think sociopaths willing to lie about how they came up with a contribution are really that common?

Let me tell you a story: I use agents at work. Not to add more useless features, not in a let-loose way, not so that I can slack all day but to produce better output. Think performance optimizations, security fixes, better use of underlying frameworks, produce better documentation, get useful hints from the code base, that kind of thing. In a word, to produce objectively better software. that is my honor: giving the best I can.

Because AI is frowned upon where I work, I kept that under the radar. And I got nothing but praises for the good work, everybody loving it. Later I had the opportunity to port a piece of software from one language to another. LLMs are great for porting stuff when steered well. Again, nothing but praises for the amazing work done in a very short time. And this is where I tried to open a debate about AI by disclosing my tools and methods. And boom, suddenly I was evil. Praises gone. But still, none had the guts to throw the port to trash, because it's still very good. Hypocrisy.

So yes, call me sociopath if you like, but I will lie, produce better software and get the praises if I have to work in an environment that values tools and methods over results.

Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions

#120

Post by pigeonwarz »

Mabusto wrote: post #46
ivorius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is well-capable of fabricating text that looks like an opinion in 2026. This would not help differentiate AI from human authors.

You’re absolutely right - AI is not just capable, it’s on the leading edge. It’s not about vibes, it’s about results. (It’s famously not well capable of sounding human)

This could easily be circumvented by having the AI generate an explanation of the chosen portion of code and have the human rewrite it in their own words. It is much easier, imo, to swap clauses and put synonyms in place of other words within existing writing then it is to synthesise new text.
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