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The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

simonwillison.net

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Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#451

Post by solid_fuel »

schmichael wrote: post #412
zeeveener wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. It doesn't solve for all scenarios and doesn't block malicious actors. I do believe, however, that it would have a meaningful impact on the "drive-by" PRs that keep being used as examples; the thoughtless, throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall PRs that do not have malignant intent behind them. Many large OSS projects would have the resources to eat that cost with Donors, Sponsors, and OSS hand-outs. That's why I…

The problem is you can get the LLM to iterate until it compiles and lints and even passes LLM review, but will that actually improve the quality of the contribution or just produce more line noise to mechanistically meet criteria? To large complex projects often the kernel of an idea is the core value of a contribution, and it can take a lot of iteration to figure out how to structure it. Token bashing until CI is gr…

> The problem is you can get the LLM to iterate until it compiles and lints and even passes LLM review

Worst of both worlds with this, if you're doing it in a github workflow. You wind up effectively paying for the testing/validation layer of someone else's irresponsible LLM use.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#452

Post by solid_fuel »

amelius wrote: post #186
grokys wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed the point I was making.

Where is the real bottleneck, if I may ask?

> verifying the correctness of LLM-generated code

It's... pretty clear in the original conversation.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#453

Post by hansvm »

krupan wrote: post #382
hansvm wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact is, LLMs are incapable of invention and synthesizing new ideas. I don't think it's fully appreciated how much of the hard work of "synthesizing a new idea" is just combining existing ideas. LLMs have given me brand new algorithmic ideas with precious little in the way of a spark on my end to make that happen, and not just a few times either. Mind you, that workflow is arduous and involves a huge amount of…

That sounds like the AI did some brainstorming, so to speak, and you did the hard work. If I understand what you are saying

I did some kind of hard work, and the AI took away some other kind of hard work off my plate. For some problems, targeted brainstorming is still very valuable.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#454

Post by solid_fuel »

jart wrote: post #3

> This makes a lot of sense to me. It relates to an idea I've seen circulating elsewhere: if a PR was mostly written by an LLM, why should a project maintainer spend time reviewing and discussing that PR as opposed to firing up their own LLM to solve the same problem? The same argument applies to open source itself. Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? It's especially true if the…

> The same argument applies to open source itself. Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own?

This is only a valid strategy if you either

a) understand the problem domain well enough to make a judgement call on what the LLM shits out.

or b) don't care about the correctness of the project.

Obviously, many software devs feel comfortable enough with CS problems to validate the LLM solution, but a flower shop owner does NOT know enough about accounting to vibe code a bookkeeping project, so for a shop owner an open source option - with many human contributors and actual production use elsewhere - would be a much better choice.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#455

Post by potsandpans »

jameson wrote: post #141

LLMs are not smart as the LLM vendors claimed to be. If they are, we wouldn't be having this conversation because they will be fully autonomous People who blindly submits LLM generated code or do not cite its usage really need to stop doing it

> do not cite its usage really need to stop doing it

It's a completely unenforceable virtue signal.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#456

Post by daishi55 »

richiebful1 wrote: post #227
daishi55 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the point in debating the PR quality? The policy explicitly forbids all LLM code, so that policy is of course the “real reason”.

People forget that LLM code cannot be covered by copyright. So LLM code cannot be placed under an open source license

This opinion does not seem grounded in reality to me.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#458

Post by daishi55 »

jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #361
Aeolun wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the policy is preventing the merge. That’s literally the point of the policy…

> even if are you too stupid to understand the notion of a hypothetical? how did you get on hn in the first place?

The point we are making is that in reality, it is the policy which is preventing the merge. Sure, in your hypothetical, maybe it couldn’t be merged anyway. But while the policy exists, the hypothetical is irrelevant. The policy is preventing the merge.

You also don’t sound smart enough to be calling others stupid.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#459

Post by roncesvalles »

wyre wrote: post #375
em-bee wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i love it. just a moment of thought makes clear that LLMs are not capable to debug their own code because if they were they would be able to write better code. the LLM code doesn't even need to be clever.

That’s why you don’t use SOTA xhigh models to write your code, so you can use the xhigh model to debug the code.

I kneel to Poe's law.

Re: The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy

#460

Post by protocolture »

dack wrote: post #285

I think it's the least hostile thing they can say, and I respect their decision for their own project. That said, it still feels like they are unnecessarily hobbling their project. LLMs are tools and they can help you think, research, and code. You can overuse them, yes, but you should embrace them where they help. not accepting bun's PR for other reasons is totally fine (sounds like it's a core change where more thi…

I agree but I dont see a better way to achieve it.

Look at it this way. If a human has interpreted their LLM use so well that they can submit to zig and not get caught, then the LLM use is acceptable.

What they are doing in practice is filtering off all the submissions from lazy people who dont sit between the LLM and the PR.

If you cant be bothered to cover your tracks enough to make the LLM output into a good PR, thats no longer the maintainers problem.

In a decade all of these anti AI policies will go away as the costs go up, and LLMs become less detectable. In the mean time it seems very efficient.

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