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Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

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Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#231

Post by whatevertrevor »

acedTrex wrote: post #80
SchemaLoad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started seeing this at work with coworkers using LLMs to generate code reviews. They submit comments which are way above their skill level which almost trick you in to thinking they are correct since only a very skilled developer would make these suggestions. And then ultimately you end up wasting tons of time proving how these suggestions are wrong. Spending far more time than the person pasting the suggestions…

Yep 100%, it is something I have also observed. Frankly has been frustrating to the point I spun up a quick one off html site to rant/get my thoughts out. https://jaysthoughts.com/aithoughts1

Just some feedback: your site is hard to read on mobile devices because of the sidebar.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#232

Post by danielbln »

mattmanser wrote: post #208
jitl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I use LLM for coding tasks, it's like "hey please translate this YAML to structs and extract any repeated patterns to re-used variables". It's possible to do this transform with deterministic tools, but AI will do a fine job in 30s and it's trivial to test the new output is identical to the prompt input. My high-level work is absolutely impossible to delegate to AI, but AI really helps with tedious or low-stakes…

In my experience, AI will not do a fine job of things like this. If the definition is past any sort of length, it will hallucinate new properties, change the names, etc. It also has a propensity to start skipping bits of the definitions by adding in comments like "/** more like this here **/" It may work for you for small YAML files, but beware doing this for larger ones. Worst part about all that is that it looks ri…

What does "AI" mean? GPT3.5 on a website, or Claude 4 Opus plugged into function calling and a harness of LSP, type checker and tool use? These are not the same, neither in terms of output quality nor in capability space. We need to be more specific about the tools we use when we discuss them. "IDEs are slow to load" wouldn't be a useful statement either.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#233

Post by AndrewDucker »

Thorrez wrote: post #212
benlivengood wrote: post #35

Open source and libre/free software are particularly vulnerable to a future where AI-generated code is ruled to be either infringing or public domain. In the former case, disentangling AI-edits from human edits could tie a project up in legal proceedings for years and projects don't have any funding to fight a copyright suit. Specifically, code that is AI-generated and subsequently modified or incorporated in the res…

Is there any likelihood that the output of the model would be public domain? Even if the model itself is public domain, the prompt was created by a human and impacted the output, so I don't see how the output could be public domain. And then after that, the output was hopefully reviewed by the original prompting human and likely reviewed by another human during code review, leading to more human impact on the final c…

There is no copyright in AI art. Presumably the same reasoning would apply to AI code: https://iclg.com/news/22400-us-court-confirms-ai-generated-a...

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#234

Post by whatevertrevor »

stevage wrote: post #201
acedTrex wrote: post #58

Oh hey, the thing I predicted in my blog titled "yes i will judge you for using AI" happened lol Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. LLMs throw that entire concept on its head by presenting code that has competent markers but none of the backing experience. It is a very very jarring experience for experienced indiv…

> Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. Yep, and it's not just code. Student essays, funding applications, internal reports, fiction, art...everything that AI touches has this problem that AI outputs look superficially similar to the work of experts.

I have learned over time that the actually smart people worth listening to, avoid jargon beyond what is strictly necessary, talk in simple terms with specific goals/improvements/changes in mind.

If I'm having to reread something over and over to understand what they're even trying to accomplish, odds are it's either AI generated or an attempt at sounding smart instead of being constructive.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#235

Post by danielbln »

stevage wrote: post #201
acedTrex wrote: post #58

Oh hey, the thing I predicted in my blog titled "yes i will judge you for using AI" happened lol Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. LLMs throw that entire concept on its head by presenting code that has competent markers but none of the backing experience. It is a very very jarring experience for experienced indiv…

> Basically I think open source has traditionally HEAVILY relied on hidden competency markers to judge the quality of incoming contributions. Yep, and it's not just code. Student essays, funding applications, internal reports, fiction, art...everything that AI touches has this problem that AI outputs look superficially similar to the work of experts.

Trajectory so far has been that AI outputs are converging increasingly not just in superficial similarity but also quality of expert output. We are obviously not there yet, and some might say we never will. But if we do, there is a whole new conversation to be had.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#236

Post by danielbln »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #194
Groxx wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By far the largest review-effort PRs of my career have been in the past year, due to mid-sized LLM-built features. Multiple rounds of other signoffs saying "lgtm" with only minor style comments only for me to finally read it and see that no, it is not even remotely acceptable and we have several uses built by the same team that would fail immediately if it was merged, to say nothing of the thousands of other users th…

I think a future with LLM coding requires much more tests, both testing happy and bad flows.

It also needs proper guideline enforcement. If an engineer produces poorly tested and unreviewed code, then the buck stops with them. This is a human problem more than it is a tool problem.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#237

Post by danielbln »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #164
BurningFrog wrote: post #61

Would it make sense to include the complete prompt that generated the code with the code?

You’d need to hash the model weights and save the seeds for the temperature prng as well, in order to verify the provenance. Ideally it would be reproducible, right?

Maybe 2 years ago. Nowadays LLMs call functions and use tools, good luck capturing that in a way that it's reproducible.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#238

Post by danielbln »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #40
Art9681 wrote: post #34

This is a "BlockBuster laughs Netflix out of the room" moment. I am a huge fan of QEMU and used it throughout my career. The maintainers have every right to govern their project as they see fit. But this is a lot of mental gymnastics to justify clinging to punchcards in a world where we now have magnetic tape and keyboards to do things faster. This tech didn't spawn weeks ago. Every major project has had at least two…

> This is a "BlockBuster laughs Netflix out of the room" moment I'm not sure that's the dunk you think it is. Good for Netflix for making money, but we're drowning in their empty slop content now and worse off for it.

Who is forcing you to watch slop? And mind you, there was a TON of garbage at any local Blockbuster back in the day, with the added joy of having to go somewhere to rent it, being slapped with late and rewind fees or not even have availability of what you want to watch.

Choice is good. It means more slop, but also more gold. Figure out how to find the gold.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#239

Post by danielbln »

loktarogar wrote: post #213
pretoriusdre wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the reasoning behind the decision is clear and as you described. But I would also make the point that the decision also comes with certain consequences, to which a discussion about merits is directly relevant.

> Essentially, people who chose not to use AI code tools will be overtaken by the people who do. That's the unfortunate reality. Who is going to "overtake" QEMU, what exactly does that mean, and what will it matter if they are?

OP said people. QEMU is not people.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#240

Post by alganet »

rvnx wrote: post #196
amake wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have AI agents that have been trained to review thousands of PRs that are produced by other, generative agents, and together they have already churned out much more software than human teams can write in a year. Was your comment tongue-in-cheek? If not, where is this huge mass of AI-generated software?

All around you, just that it doesn’t make sense for developers to reveal that a lot of their work is now about chunking and refining the specifications written by the product owner. Admitting such is like admitting you are overpaid for your job, and that a 20 USD AI-agent can do better and faster than you for 75% of the work. Is it easy to admit that you have learnt skills for 10+ years that are progressively already…

I have a complete proof that P=NP but it doesn't make sense to reveal to the world that now I'm god. It would crush their little hearts.
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