I wonder how long software projects will even be able to ban LLM use in an age where exploits are found by LLMs. Like, if you have two forks of Debian and one uses LLMs to fix exploitable bugs and the other one doesn't, the level of security they can offer will be worlds apart. And noone in their right mind would want to use the less secure one. Similar to how noone would want to drive a car that was 100% hand built…
> And noone in their right mind would want to use the less secure one. I mean, this is a perfect description of the prisoner's dilemma. Ins't it a shame that we keep playing that game? There's something seriously wrong if we just keep creating these new arms race scenarios. It's sickening.
> There's something seriously wrong if we just keep creating these new arms race scenarios. It's sickening.
The wording of "written with ai tools" implies generation, as do all the concerns about copyright etc. it would be beyond insane to attempt to ban asking a chat bot or an agent questions to navigate or understand a codebase, not in the least because that is completely unenforceable
> not in the least because that is completely unenforceable You've completely missed my point. It's ALL completely unenforceable. That doesn't mean the directive is useless - it's a guideline for contributors towards a general project direction that will materially limit & reduce overt LLM usage by anyone acting in good faith (the vast majority). The enforcement doesn't need to be strict, but anything less than stric…
IMO firm wording against non generative uses of AI or lightweight uses like tab complete will go beyond just influencing good faith actors to reduce llm usage - it'll just influence them to not contribute instead. If you make it clear you don't even want llms used for debugging, if you're a good faith actor that makes use of even the most minimal extent of these very common and basic tools, you'd rather just not deal with the hassle. Either you don't deal with debian at all or you don't try and upstream your changes. The latter is probably the desired outcome to limit slop contributions, but when you have the Linus Torvalds making clear that llms are a tool and that he thinks banning their use is absurd when it comes to the kernel itself, youre gonna cut down on a lot more than slop.
> not in the least because that is completely unenforceable You've completely missed my point. It's ALL completely unenforceable. That doesn't mean the directive is useless - it's a guideline for contributors towards a general project direction that will materially limit & reduce overt LLM usage by anyone acting in good faith (the vast majority). The enforcement doesn't need to be strict, but anything less than stric…
IMO firm wording against non generative uses of AI or lightweight uses like tab complete will go beyond just influencing good faith actors to reduce llm usage - it'll just influence them to not contribute instead. If you make it clear you don't even want llms used for debugging, if you're a good faith actor that makes use of even the most minimal extent of these very common and basic tools, you'd rather just not deal…
> when you have the Linus Torvalds making clear that llms are a tool and that he thinks banning their use is absurd when it comes to the kernel itself, youre gonna cut down on a lot more than slop
What you're saying here is that you think one person should dictate the philosophical position of every downstream project.
Skimming over the proposals, only option 1 even mentions copyright and licensing issues, which have been traditionally a big deal for open source software
Some people find a duty to ignore senseless rules. If Debian wants to make the LLM thing good, sue the providers for a billion or two for copyright violation, and join a class action to do some ASCAP style thing routing their money back to copyright holders. Separately, lobby to regulate data center build outs to include the solar and battery they need, and not be built in water stressed areas or near people who obje…
It's strange we're complaining about too much investment. The reason we avoid deflation is because it hinders investment, but perhaps it's time for a bit less money creation and have a period of deflation, even if it makes the "growth" figures look bad. Politically difficult of course.
It ruined my nice quiet job of delivering networks services during the dot com bust; it ruined the ordinary practice of staying employed and moving during the financial crisis; it didn’t hurt as much but wasted a lot of time and energy during the crypto excitement, and seems to causing people to somehow think that increasing our (based on 2026 chips) compute capacity by an order of magnitude or so makes sense (which economically represents real pessimism - we spend a few trillion on this years technology is saying we don’t think that the rate of growth of tech power will continue to increase in the out years).
Don't misinterpret this link as representing a final decision. It's actually three separate proposals which will be debated and then voted on. Proposal A is "expressly forbid any contributions to Debian written with the use or assistance of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools." Proposal B is "The Debian project allows AI-assisted contributions (partially or fully generated by an LLM), provided t…
Disappointing there's not a Proposal E "require use of LLM's by contributors"
At the same time, how can a human know if they accidentally rewrote exactly some code they read in the past from a codebase with an incompatible license? Accidental copies happen all the time in code, music and art. Not all of it is necessarily super original, but that's beside the point and it happens. So while we think we can hold AI tools to higher standards than humans, they are still modeled after human thinking…
This argument is almost algorithmic: Take the concern about , substitute 'human'. Also, another popular response: don't address questions, instead try to put the person asking on the defensive. The main point is the implicit argument that humans and machines are equivalent.
Sure. But in the end, it's just a tool that is used to assign blame when there are issues, and humans are more comfortable when another human is to blame rather than a machine as it means they are still in control (or have the illusion of).
IMO firm wording against non generative uses of AI or lightweight uses like tab complete will go beyond just influencing good faith actors to reduce llm usage - it'll just influence them to not contribute instead. If you make it clear you don't even want llms used for debugging, if you're a good faith actor that makes use of even the most minimal extent of these very common and basic tools, you'd rather just not deal…
> when you have the Linus Torvalds making clear that llms are a tool and that he thinks banning their use is absurd when it comes to the kernel itself, youre gonna cut down on a lot more than slop What you're saying here is that you think one person should dictate the philosophical position of every downstream project.
No what I'm saying is that this is a case where one person already does have a hell of a lot of influence over every downstream project already and that has consequences