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Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

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Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#231

Post by nunez »

AlexandrB wrote: post #32
mrbungie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way niche/luxury product and services compare to fast/cheap ones: they are made with focus and intent that goes against the statistical average, which also normally would take more time and effort to make. McDonalds cooks ~great~ (edit: fair enough, decent) burgers when measured objectively, but people still go to more niche burger restaurants because they want something different and made with more care. Th…

> McDonalds cooks great burgers when measured objectively Wait, what? In what world are McDonalds burgers "great"? They're cheap . Maybe even a good value. But that's not the same as great .

McD's burgers are like having Budweiser/Bud Light beer (or Starbucks coffee if you don't drink alcohol). The product is just okay --- sometimes even good --- but it's unbelievably consistent. A Bud Light/Starbucks iced latte in the mountains will taste exactly the same as a Bud Light/Starbucks iced latte on the beach.

I love burgers and have had many all over the US; I wouldn't turn down a McD's burger.

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#232

Post by pocksuppet »

LinXitoW wrote: post #182
pixl97 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>other people are reasonable like you No AI needed. Spam on the internet is a great example of the amount of unreasonable people on the internet. And for this I'll define unreasonable as "committing an action they would not want committed back at them". AI here is the final nail in the coffin that many sysadmins have been dealing with for decades. And that is that unreasonable actors are a type of asymmetric warfare…

Every order of magnitude of difference constitutes a categorical difference. The ability to create spam instantly, fitted perfectly to any situation, and doing that 24/7, everywhere, is very different from before. Before, spam was annoying but generally different enough to tell apart. It was also (in general) never too much as to make an entire platform useless. With AI, the entire internet IS spam. No matter what yo…

And the incentive to spam. AI pull request writers feel like they're helping the project, not hurting it, so they do it a lot more.

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#233

Post by ivan_gammel »

heavyset_go wrote: post #208
ivan_gammel wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it's not that simple. AI generated code isn't owned by anyone, it can't be copyrighted, so it cannot be licensed. There is no way to reliably identify code as AI-generated, unless it is explicitly labelled so. Good code produced by AI is not different from the good code produced by software engineer, so copyright is the last thing I would be worried about. Especially given the fact that reviewing all pull reque…

At least with LLM providers, they have your prompts and output, and if they wanted to, they could identify what code was AI generated or not. Maybe they can be subpoenaed, maybe they can sell the data to parties who care like legal teams, maybe they can make it service anyone can plug a GitHub repo into, etc.

Do you really think anyone is ready to spend money on legal to prove that some piece of code is public domain/has no author? That’s an expensive bet with uncertain outcome. And of course you can recover some information only if logs exist, which might not be the case, especially if local inference was used.

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#234

Post by fc417fc802 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #164
ivan_gammel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sign off the code and put your expertise and reputation behind it, AI becomes just an advanced autocomplete tool and, as such, should not count in “no AI” rules. It’s ok to use it, if that enables you to work.

> If you sign off the code and put your expertise and reputation behind it, AI becomes just an advanced autocomplete tool and, as such, should not count in “no AI” rules. No, it's not that simple. AI generated code isn't owned by anyone, it can't be copyrighted, so it cannot be licensed. This matters for open source projects that care about licensing. It should also matter for proprietary code bases, as anyone can co…

> AI generated code isn't owned by anyone, it can't be copyrighted, so it cannot be licensed.

Translation: AI generated code is in the public domain in the US (until and unless something changes).

You can freely incorporate public domain code into any other codebase. You can relicense it as you see fit. Public domain material is not viral the way the GPL is.

Furthermore, if you make changes to public domain code the derivative product is subject to copyright.

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#235

Post by petterroea »

mr-wendel wrote: post #58

My two cents: I've been coding practically my entire life, but a few years back I sustained a pretty significant and lasting injury to my wrists. As such, I have very little tolerance for typing. It's been quite a problem and made full time work impossible. With the advent of LLMs, AI-autocomplete, and agent-based development workflows, my ability to deliver reliable, high-quality code is restored and (arguably) bett…

As someone who got a pretty severe case of carpal tunnel in his youth that can still blow up today, I have to admit I have worried about my ability to work. "Will I have to become a manager?" Etc.

I think you have a good point

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#236

Post by trinsic2 »

petterroea wrote: post #235
mr-wendel wrote: post #58

My two cents: I've been coding practically my entire life, but a few years back I sustained a pretty significant and lasting injury to my wrists. As such, I have very little tolerance for typing. It's been quite a problem and made full time work impossible. With the advent of LLMs, AI-autocomplete, and agent-based development workflows, my ability to deliver reliable, high-quality code is restored and (arguably) bett…

As someone who got a pretty severe case of carpal tunnel in his youth that can still blow up today, I have to admit I have worried about my ability to work. "Will I have to become a manager?" Etc. I think you have a good point

for some reason that hasn't happned to me yet. im only in my 50ies, but I have been on a split keyboard for a long time...

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#237

Post by PinkMilkshake »

I don't particularly care if vibe coding and the like are used for web apps and mobile apps. The quality there has always been poor and gets worse over time. AI slopware is just the new low and in a few years time I'm sure they will find a way to make things even worse.

But for software infrastructure; Kernels, operating systems, compilers, browsers, etc, it is crazy we are even considering AI at it's current ability. If we are going to do that, we need to switch to Ada/SPARK or some other type of formally verifiable system.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but all I want to do right now is escape. It horrifies me to think that one day I may be driving a car with a braking system vibe coded in C++.

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#238

Post by nextaccountic »

gwbas1c wrote: post #126
mr-wendel wrote: post #58

My two cents: I've been coding practically my entire life, but a few years back I sustained a pretty significant and lasting injury to my wrists. As such, I have very little tolerance for typing. It's been quite a problem and made full time work impossible. With the advent of LLMs, AI-autocomplete, and agent-based development workflows, my ability to deliver reliable, high-quality code is restored and (arguably) bett…

> I'd MUCH rather see a holistic embrace and integration of these tools into our ecosystems. Telling people "no AI!" (even if very well defined on what that means) is toothless against people with little regard for making the world (or just one specific repo) a better place. That doesn't address the controversy because you are a reasonable person assuming that other people using AI are reasonable like you, and know h…

> The rumors we hear have to do with projects inundated with more pull requests that they can review, the pull requests are obviously low quality, and the contributors' motives are selfish.

There's a way to handle this: put an automatic AI review of every PR from new contributors. Fight fire with fire.

(Actually, this was the solution for spam even before LLMs. See "A plan for SPAM" by Paul Graham. Basically, if you have a cheap but accurate filter (specially, a filter you can train for your own patterns), it should be enabled as a first line of defense. Anything the filter doesn't catch and the user had to manually mark as spam should become data to improve the filter)

Moreover, if the review detects LLM-generated content but the user didn't disclose it, maybe there should be consequences

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#239

Post by isodev »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #237

I don't particularly care if vibe coding and the like are used for web apps and mobile apps. The quality there has always been poor and gets worse over time. AI slopware is just the new low and in a few years time I'm sure they will find a way to make things even worse. But for software infrastructure; Kernels, operating systems, compilers, browsers, etc, it is crazy we are even considering AI at it's current ability…

I don’t think you’re overreacting.

Great care and attention is required for critical system components and LLMs lack both.

Not to mention the copyright risks - do we really want a piece of code that can’t be licensed or turns out to be a verbatim copy from another project to end up in the kernel or something? (No, the answer is we don’t want.).

Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions

#240

Post by [deleted] »

mr-wendel wrote: post #58

My two cents: I've been coding practically my entire life, but a few years back I sustained a pretty significant and lasting injury to my wrists. As such, I have very little tolerance for typing. It's been quite a problem and made full time work impossible. With the advent of LLMs, AI-autocomplete, and agent-based development workflows, my ability to deliver reliable, high-quality code is restored and (arguably) bett…

[deleted]
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