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Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

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41–50 of 471 posts

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#41
post #14

Good to see the most common sense option winning. Some of the other proposals were so disconnected from reality I'm surprised they were even considered.

If there weren't a wide range of options offered, there'd be a risk of it not actually reflecting what people want - which is, presumably, the whole point of putting it to the vote in the first place.

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#43

New policy boils down to "AI or not, it's still your code and you're responsible for it". I can get on board with that.

A good thing about the "you're the author regardless of the tool you used to produce the code" policy is that if a developer repeatedly submits poor quality AI generated code, one does not blame the model or the agent, one bans/terminates the developer.

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#44

New policy boils down to "AI or not, it's still your code and you're responsible for it". I can get on board with that.

That's the policy we have at my work. Use AI if you want, as long as people can review it and if it breaks, don't go blaming Claude, it's your fault.

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#45

New policy boils down to "AI or not, it's still your code and you're responsible for it". I can get on board with that.

This outcome was to be expected.

The whole voting mechanism just exists as an elaborate dance that makes everyone keep their face, while the only sensible option wins.

A bureaucratic tarpit for bad ideas and emotions.

In a better world, none of this would be necessary, but we live in this world, and for that one, it's nice that someone engineered the system that way. Good job.

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#47

[flagged]

Meh, I don't think so. They have no way to ascertain what tools were used to write a piece of code. A reasonable solution is to simply hold all code and its contributors to the same standards as before. At Debian's scale, "no LLMs" is really not enforceable; whereas "no shit code" and "no incompetent maintenance" are pragmatic policies they already enforce

Re: Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

#49
post #29

Now you have seen both cases where a majority vote was involved to allow AI or not, vs a single core beloved dictator for life (BDFL) forces a ban without a vote to allow / disallow AI. This is democracy in action. A fair and square vote and look at how well it works with no core BDFL to force in their opinions.

There are several occurrences in history that the democratic majority has chosen the "wrong" person/way/thing. Democracy is considered the best system but it's not perfect.
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