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OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

openjdk.org

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Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#11

Post by ofjcihen »

hajile wrote: post #10
SomeHacker44 wrote: post #3

Seems short sighted for an interim policy, to me. Why not just require clear and detailed disclosure of the use of said tools, to generate data for which to make a properly informed non interim decision?

All "interim" AI contributions to OpenJDK can and will be sued to make big money off of Oracle if those court cases don't go a certain way. This is ironic given how Oracle has bet almost everything on AI succeeding.

Past everything. Even the CEO is leveraged up to his neck in personal debt at this point.

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#12

Post by kdavis »

While I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian.

It states in part:

> Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy:

> Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models...

Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the addition:

> Q: Is it okay to continue using the spell-checking, grammar-checking, auto-completion, and refactoring features in my editor or IDE?

> A: Yes, so long as they are not based on large language models or similar deep-learning systems.

This addition will likely not help as most spell checkers are OS/IDE services and their implementation details are opaque to users.

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#13

Post by stonogo »

pizlonator wrote: post #7

How do you enforce this?

As best as you can. I don't know why people keep asking this question, when the answer is obvious and exactly like all other contribution policies.

In this case, this is coming from Oracle, which holds the OpenJDK purse strings, so being found in violation is also likely to have financial consequences for the violator.

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#15

Post by grodriguez100 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5
SomeHacker44 wrote: post #3

Seems short sighted for an interim policy, to me. Why not just require clear and detailed disclosure of the use of said tools, to generate data for which to make a properly informed non interim decision?

I suspect one of the principle reasons for the blanket decline is specifically that AI generated PRs are already responsible for a substantial uptick in the amount of work required to be done by maintainers. Engaging in discussions about those PRs may be more fulfilling and useful for the developer but it also then increases that work yet again manifold, so that would likely be highly counter-productive. What I don't…

> why can't you then write the solution and PR yourself?

You can. The policy explicitly allows you to use AI for understanding the codebase, debugging, etc. It just says “no AI generated content”. So if you use Claude to increase your understanding but then write your own code, that’s fine.

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#16

Post by malfist »

kdavis wrote: post #12

While I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian. It states in part: > Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy: > Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models... Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the ad…

> this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based

Who is using an LLM as a spell checker?

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#19

Post by bpicolo »

malfist wrote: post #16
kdavis wrote: post #12

While I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian. It states in part: > Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy: > Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models... Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the ad…

> this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based Who is using an LLM as a spell checker?

Yeah - spell checking has been on device for literal decades.

Re: OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI

#20

Post by ekidd »

kdavis wrote: post #12

While I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian. It states in part: > Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy: > Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models... Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the ad…

Is anyone using even a tiny on-device language model for spelling? For grammar, I could almost imagine it.

But this also bans "simple" AI-powered auto-complete, like Zed's Zeta2 model. This is a very conservative model that rarely tries to propose more than a few obvious lines (at least in my use cases). If a developer accepts a three-line autocomplete that introduces a bug, that's kind of on them. Honestly, about the only thing that Zeta2 is good for is reducing the risk of RSI.

To be fair, it's also their project, and I completely support their right to set whatever policies they want.

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