Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

Post by 1718627440 » Sat, Aug 29, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #215

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except LLMs actually are making programmers dumber. I personally know people, people whom I know for a fact were good programmers before, who have now completely stopped using their brains. When you ask them why they did something in the code, they say "I don't know, Claude did that and I didn't really question it". There was no such analogous phenomenon with IDEs.

That's what delegation looks like, but it needs a better process. They could be committing plan files alongside any nontrivial change to application code, and the plan file can have everything you'd care about, like the invariants it held to and why, the rejected ideas and why, the acceptable risks and why, etc. This is solved by better usage of LLMs, not less. The divide to me isn't engineering skill vs those who lo…

Post by onesandofgrain » Sat, Aug 29, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

thi2 wrote: post #21

onesandofgrain wrote: post #10

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Debian is open source, there is no incentive to be "responsible for it", oh poor me, someone got a bug. If it's paid for through a job your argument is sound.

How is it different to hand written code if the author doesnt care?

Post by 1718627440 » Sat, Aug 29, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

qsera wrote: post #79

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why AI agent attributions in commits is silly (it’s really just a stealth ad for the tool) Had someone at $DAYJOB just shrug and say Claude messed up when I pointed out a sql injection in the code in their PR. It became explicit policy at the company after that moment that blaming the AI is not an excuse for shoddy work.

> blaming the AI is not an excuse.. It kind of is if the company mandates LLM use. It is sort of sad that now programmers are suddenly expected to be perfect reviewers of code they didn't write.

Post by insanitybit » Sat, Aug 29, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

zaneyard wrote: post #85

vlyan wrote: post #76

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IDEs enable us to not bother memorizing the number and order of arguments, long names beyond the first word or two, etc. the impact is comparable, freeing some of the very limited space in our memory for more important things. sure, students and juniors shoot themselves in the dick if they let LLMs do everything, but they're fucked anyway so it doesn't matter,

With AI people aren't reading, writing, or thinking about the code. I would not say something that helps me remember a function name is comparible.

Post by fortzi » Sat, Aug 29, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

moring wrote: post #247

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can just ask Claude why it did something But will Claude give you an authentic rationale and a traceable, verifiable "line of reasoning" for those things? Or will it just construct the next plausible Markov chain built on whatever Reddit thread it ingested at random? You can ask Claude or any LLM for citations, and it will RAG them out ex post facto . Those actually aren't citations, they're just web searches f…

Now replace "Claude" by "human" and see how your comment goes. Specifically, humans are known to decide subconsciously, then invent some "reasoning" out of thin air to justify it. This matches my experience with decision-making in software projects.