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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

#271

Post by incomingpain »

Using AI code generators. I have been able to get the code base large enough that it was starting to make nonsense changes.

However, my overall experience I have been thinking about how this is going to be a massive boon to open source. So many patches, so many new tools will be created to streamline getting new packages into repos. Everything can be tested.

Open source is going to be epicly boosted now.

QEMU deciding to sit out from this acceleration is crazy to me, but probably what is going to give Xen/Docker/Podman the lead.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#272

Post by conartist6 »

AJ007 wrote: post #63
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…

I understand what experienced developers don't want random AI contributions from no-knowledge "developers" contributing to a project. In any situation, if a human is review AI code line by line that would tie up humans for years, even ignoring anything legally. #1 There will be no verifiable way to prove something was AI generated beyond early models. #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will no…

#2 is a complete and total fallacy, trivially disprovable.

Overall velocity doesn't come from writing a lot more code, or even from writing code especially quickly.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#273

Post by conartist6 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #202
amake wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not obvious because people producing high quality stuff have no incentive at all to mark their changes as AI-generated I feel like we'd be hearing from business that crushed their competition by delivering faster or with fewer people. Where are those businesses? > But there are also local tools generated This is really not the same thing as the original claim ("Software projects that somehow are 100% human dev…

> I feel like we'd be hearing from business that crushed their competition by delivering faster or with fewer people. Where are those businesses? As if tech part was the major part of getting the product to market. Those businesses are probably everywhere. They just aren't open about admitting they're using AI to speed up their marketing/product design/programming/project management/graphics design, because a) it's n…

And because from the outside everything looks worse than ever. Worse quality, no more support, established companies going crazy to cut costs. AI slop is replacing thoughtful content across the web. Engineering morale is probably at an all time low for my 20 years watching this industry...

So my question is: if so many people should be bragging to me and celebrating how much better things are, why does it look to me like they are worse and everyone is miserable about it...?

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#274

Post by ethan_smith »

BurningFrog wrote: post #61

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

Including prompts would create transparency but still wouldn't resolve the underlying copyright uncertainty of the output or guarantee the code wasn't trained on incompatibly-licensed material.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#275

Post by acedTrex »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #231
acedTrex wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you, I'll get that fixed.

Edit: Mobile should be fixed now

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#276

Post by ben_w »

amake wrote: post #71
AJ007 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what experienced developers don't want random AI contributions from no-knowledge "developers" contributing to a project. In any situation, if a human is review AI code line by line that would tie up humans for years, even ignoring anything legally. #1 There will be no verifiable way to prove something was AI generated beyond early models. #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will no…

> #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will not be competitive with AI assisted or written projects Still waiting to see evidence of AI-driven projects eating the lunch of "traditional" projects.

How can you tell which project is which?

I mean, sure, there's plenty of devs who refuse to use AI, but how many projects rather than individuals are in each category?

And is Microsoft "traditional"? I name them specifically because their CEO claims 20-30% of their new code is AI generated: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/29/microsoft-ceo-says-up-to-3...

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#277

Post by ben_w »

alganet wrote: post #240
rvnx wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

P = NP is less "crush their little hearts", more "may cause widespread heart attacks across every industry due to cryptography failing, depending on if the polynomial exponent is small enough".

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#278

Post by brahma-dev »

mcoliver wrote: post #143
amake wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> #2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will not be competitive with AI assisted or written projects Still waiting to see evidence of AI-driven projects eating the lunch of "traditional" projects.

80-90% of Claude is now written by Claude

Cigarettes do not cause cancer.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#279

Post by acedTrex »

mattmanser wrote: post #211
acedTrex wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://jaysthoughts.com/aithoughts1 Bit of a rambly rant, but the prediction stuff I was tongue in cheek referring to above is at the bottom.

Looks like your blog post got submitted here and then I assume triggered the flame war flag. A lot of people just reading the title and knee jerking in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44384610 Funny, as the entire thing starts off with "Now, full disclosure, the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek.".

I suppose I did bring that on myself with the title didn't I. I believe I have fixed the site for mobile so hopefully some of those thread complaints have been rectified.

Re: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

#280

Post by windward »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #207
kgwxd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't release someone else's proprietary source under a "do whatever the fuck you want" license and actually do whatever the fuck you want, without getting sued.

Only more reason for OSS to embrace AI generation - once it leaks into enough widely used or critical (think cURL) dependencies and exceeds certain critical mass, any judgement on the IP aspects other than "public domain" (in the broader sense) will become infeasible, as enforcing a different judgement would be like doing open heart surgery on the global economy.

That's the situation we're already in with copyleft licences but legal teams still treat them like the plague.
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