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Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

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

#471

Post by inigyou »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #461
inigyou wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and when it isn't is a very specific very limited case that has no relation to the one being discussed. The fact that some course of action was previously mentioned in a reasoning trace, or any other context, makes it more likely to be performed. It has nothing to do with the reason that it was mentioned in the reasoning trace.

I don't think it's that limited of a case. And it's not "no relation", it was brought up as an attempt to fix/subset the original claim.

No, it's just warding off pedantry. There is one way that reasoning traces might "be the reason" something happens, but that's different from the reasoning trace saying why something happens, which was the question.

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

#472

Post by arjie »

qarl2 wrote: post #328
arjie wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be in foreign interest, yes. But all of this is no different from 50 years of the environmentalist movement. The snail darter was an invented species decades ago. So if it’s propaganda, it’s not invented so much as amplifying what we invented here.

Look to see who profits.

That does indeed make it seem like Executive Directors of environmental NGOs are responsible for this.

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

#473

Post by xiphias2 »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #335
xiphias2 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true, reviews got much harder as generating code got easier, understanding it hasn't.

Why do you need to understand the code? Ask the LLM, it'll already do a better job than humans can.

Much better at satisfying formal specifications (what they were trained for), but not yet good at long term maintenance.

For long term maintenance you need to throw features out / delete code, which requires a deep understanding of the balance between what the code can survive and what is really needed in reality while not growing the code base too much (which neither LLMs nor humans can handle)

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

#474

Post by [deleted] »

newswasboring wrote: post #143
zaneyard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's because you are used to it. I am old enough to have been there during the rise of things like intellisense and language servers, people were making the exact same arguments about them. That not knowing your API to the core makes you a bad programmer. I'm sure for IDEs themselves there were similar arguments and it goes all the way back to Socrates' warning against writing. These arguments always end with "but…

[deleted]

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

#475

Post by [deleted] »

brookst wrote: post #139
zaneyard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m genuinely curious why it matters to make abstract moral judgments about the differences between remembering function names and deep understanding of the syntax used in a function. Why don’t we just care about results? Code quality, performance, clarity are all measurable. Why bother with philosophical positions on these?

[deleted]

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

#476

Post by 0xpgm »

DaSHacka wrote: post #223
song_synth wrote: post #186

Whelp time to deactivate unattended-upgrades

Objectively you shouldn't have had those enabled in the first place on any system that matters.

Perfectly fine for personal servers that matter. Its better IMO to risk having a rare breakage than to stay behind security upgrades.

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

#477

Post by lrvick »

b112 wrote: post #458
lrvick wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see it every day in the news with hacks that were, in every single case, completely preventable. That is had any competent security engineers been involved, with leadership willing to fund the cycles to do it right. "But we passed SOC2 and that is all our customers care about" they say, right up until they are in the headlines for a data breach directly resulting from them putting all customer data in plain text i…

Yes, indeed. But at the same time, this is about "how much worse" it will be, with LLMs. With code review being skipped. With there being so much code, no one has the time to even code review. It's a whole other level of junk. 100x worse than now. So multiple what you just said, x100.

Oh I think there is a substantial chance the internet completely breaks before we learn anything and try a sane approach on the rebuild.

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

#478

Post by othmanosx »

tdrz wrote: post #417
bfgeek wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that open source projects are facing at the moment is that it takes significantly less effort to submit a patch for review. A lot of developers who are submitting these AI patches don't necessarily understand the patch, so the onus is on the reviewer/code-owner. The reviewers are getting swamped (some reviewers are receiving 100s or patches per month). If feedback is provided at lot of the time the patch au…

I'm an OSS maintainer and to me it's not just about the review itself. Being greeted by a wall of text for every little small thing is counter-productive. I hate going through 2 pages of text for each PR. It usually shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences if you understand the issue and the solution. But most important for me: lots of time the PR just adds even more code, although other options do exist (ie so…

Give https://pyor.review a shot if you’re struggling with PR reviews on github.

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

#479

Post by 1718627440 »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #437
1718627440 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a well-known trope, that it's harder to read code than to write it, and review is more complicated than to read it, so I do not understand what you want to imply?

Maybe it is for people who have written code all their lives, but as someone who started with reading code and has read far more code than I’ve ever written, reading code is WAY easier for me.

If it's easier for you to convert written code into mental models than the other way around, you are either a incredible smart and skilled person and a good programmer and should be able to convert that into a job and money easily, or you can't really write code at all.

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

#480

Post by embedding-shape »

othmanosx wrote: post #478
tdrz wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an OSS maintainer and to me it's not just about the review itself. Being greeted by a wall of text for every little small thing is counter-productive. I hate going through 2 pages of text for each PR. It usually shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences if you understand the issue and the solution. But most important for me: lots of time the PR just adds even more code, although other options do exist (ie so…

Give https://pyor.review a shot if you’re struggling with PR reviews on github.

Or, the SaaS-less approach, if a issue description is too messy/long, close it with "Please reopen with proper and concise description focusing on the issue" then lock it. Eventually people catch up and stop with the slop, just like in real life.

But you have to be able to say "No ...", rather than just slapping another subscription on top of an already broken workflow.

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