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Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
81–90 of 308 posts
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You're a human, who went through real life experiences. You learned, developed as a human being. You made mistakes and grew from them. You did what you have to do to advance. What you output has intrinsic value because of all this. I argue that even when you roll your face on your keyboard, the output is more valuable than ten pages of slop output from an LLM, since it's human, with all the history, experience, e…
I don't know why this got downvoted. I've already been so frustrated by HN LIDAR mindsets but holy shit. Human society exists because we value humans, full stop. The easiest way to "solve" all of humanity's problems is to simply say that humans aren't valuable. Sometimes it feels like we're conceding a ridiculous amount of ground on that basic principle every year - one more human value gone because it "doesn't matte…
Agreed. I think that sometimes people on HN lose sight of what is actually important, which is human flourishing. The other day there was someone arguing that the best thing to do to fix loneliness problems in society is to remove the human need for socializing. Which... is certainly one way to fix the problem, I guess, but completely missed the point. The point is not to fix a mismatch between essential human desires and what we can attain, the point is to work on fulfilling those desires! Just something goes with nerd autism, I guess.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crystal ball, maybe, but 3 years ago, the AI generated classes with empty methods containing "// implement logic here" and now, AI is generating whole stack applications that run from the first try. Past performance does not guarantee future results, of course. But acting like AI is now magically going to stagnate is also a really bold bet.
> now, AI is generating whole stack applications that run from the first try I sincerely doubt that, because it still can't even generate a few hundred line script that runs on the first try. I would know, I just tried yesterday. The first attempt was using hallucinated APIs and while I did get it to work eventually, I don't think it can one shot a complex application if it can't one shot a simple script. IMO, AI has…
What tool did you use ?
I routinely generate applications for my personal use using OpenCode + Claude Sonnet/Opus.
Yesterday I generated an app for my son to learn multiplication tables using spaced repetition algorithm and score keeping. It took me like 5 minutes.
Of course if you use ChatGPT it will not work but there is no way Claude Code/Open Code with any modern model isn't able to generate a one hundred line script on the first try.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#84Fork it to Slobian and let the clankers go to town creating, approving and merging pull requests by themselves. Look at the install base to see what people prefer.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you believe the outputs of LLMs are derivative products of the materials the LLMs were trained on In that case a lot of proprietary software is in breach of copyleft licences. Its probably by far the commonest breach. > You are now party to violating the original materials' copyright by accepting AI generated code. That's ethically dubious That is arguable. Is it always ethically dubious to breach a law? If not,…
> In that case a lot of proprietary software is in breach of copyleft licences. Its probably by far the commonest breach. Sure, but this doesn't really seem relevant to the conversation. Someone else violating software license terms doesn't justify me (or Debian, in the case of TFA) doing so. > Is it always ethically dubious to breach a law? I'm not really concerned with the law, here. I think it is ethically dubious…
> I'm not really concerned with the law, here. I think it is ethically dubious to use someone else's work without compensating them in the manner they declared.
OK, that is reasonable. I do not think copyright is a good mechanism though, and I think the need to compensate depends on multiple factors depending on what you use a work for and under what circumstances.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting argument for AI ethics in general. It takes the form of "guns don't kill people - people kill people".
Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”
The desire to anthropomorphize LLMs is super interesting. People naturally anthropomorphize technology (even printers: "why are you not working!?"). It's a natural and useful heuristic. However, I can easily see how chatGPT would want to intensify this tendency in order to sell the technology's "agency" and the promise that it can solve all your problems. However, since it's a heuristic, it papers over a lot of details that one would do well to understand.
(as an aside - this reminds me of the trend of Object Oriented Ontology that specifically /tried/ to imbue agency onto large-scale phenomena that were difficult to understand discretely. I remember "global warming" being one of those things - and I can see now how this philosophy would have done more to obscure the dominion of experts wrt that topic)
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#87I think it's a complicated issue. A lot of low quality AI contributions arrive using free tiers of these AI models, the output of which is pretty crap. On the other hand, if you max out the model configs, i.e. get "the best money can buy", then those models are actually quite useful and powerful. OSS should not miss out on the power LLMs can unleash. Talking about the maxed out versions of the newest models only, i.e…
It's the difference between raw LLM output vs LLM output that was tweaked, reviewed and validated by a competent developer.
Both can look like the same exact type of AI-generated code. But one is a broken useless piece of shit and the other actually does what it claims to do.
The problem is just how hard it is to differentiate the two at a glance.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#88Concerns about the wasting of maintainer’s time, onboarding, or copyright, are of great interest to me from a policy perspective. But I find some of the debate around the quality of AI contributions to be odd. Quality should always be the responsibility of the person submitting changes. Whether a person used LLMs should not be a large concern if someone is acting in good-faith. If they submitted bad code, having used…
It should be the responsibility of the person submitting changes. The problem is AI apparently makes it easy for people to shirk that responsibility.
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say "on a long enough timeline", but you already can't tell today in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. I think a lot of anti-LLM opinions just come from interacting with the lowest effort LLM slop and someone not realizing that it's really a problem with a low value person behind it. It's why "no AI allowed" is pointless; high value contributors won't follow it because they know how to use it pro…
> It's why "no AI allowed" is pointless … If you tell me AI isn't allowed because it writes bad code I disagree that the rule is pointless, and your last point is a strawman. AI is disallowed because it’s the manner in which the would-be contributors are attempting to contribute to these projects. It’s a proxy rule. Unfortunately for AI maximalists, code is more than just letters on the screen. There needs to be huma…
Vibe coded slop is a 50 DKP minus of course
Re: Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions
#90My 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…
This is a bit of a straw man. The harms of AI in OSS are not from people needing accessibility tooling.
It's absolutely not a straw man, because OP and people like OP will be affected by any policy which limits or bans LLMs. Whether or not the policy writer intended it. So he deserves a voice.