[SamuelAdams]

My question on AI generated contributions and content in general: on a long enough timeline, with ever improving advancements in AI, how can people reliably tell the difference between human and AI generated efforts?

Sure now it is easy, but in 3-10 years AI will get significantly better. It is a lot like the audio quality of an MP3 recording. It is not perfect (lossless audio is better), but for the majority of users it is "good enough".

At a certain point AI generated content, PR's, etc will be good enough for humans to accept it as "human". What happens then, when even the best checks and balances are fooled?

[lich_king]

> My question on AI generated contributions and content in general: on a long enough timeline, with ever improving advancements in AI, how can people reliably tell the difference between human and AI generated efforts?

Can you reliably tell that the contributor is truly the author of the patch and that they aren't working for a company that asserts copyright on that code? No, but it's probably still a good idea to have a policy that says "you can't do that", and you should be on the lookout for obvious violations.

It's the same story here. If you do nothing, you invite problems. If you do something, you won't stop every instance, but you're on stronger footing if it ever blows up.

Of course, the next question is whether AI-generated code that matches or surpasses human quality is even a problem. But right now, it's academic: most of the AI submissions received by open source projects are low quality. And if it improves, some projects might still have issues with it on legal (copyright) or ideological grounds, and that's their prerogative.

[sheepscreek]

Precisely. “AI” contributions should be seen as an extension of the individual. If anything, they could ask that the account belong to a person and not be a second bot only account. Basically, a person’s own reputation should be on the line.

[SlinkyOnStairs]

Reputation isn't very relevant here. Yes, for established well known FOSS developers, their reputation will tank if they put out sloppy PRs and people will just ignore them.

But the projects aren't drowning under PRs from reputable people. They're drowning in drive-by PRs from people with no reputation to speak of. Even if you outright ban their account, they'll just spin up a new one and try again.

Blocking AI submissions serves as a heuristic to reduce this flood of PRs, because the alternative is to ban submissions from people without reputation, and that'd be very harmful to open source.

And AI cannot be the solution here, because open source projects have no funds. Asking maintainers to fork over $200/month for "AI code reviews" just kills the project.

[hombre_fatal]

Well, the problem you just outlined is a reputation (+ UI) problem: why are contributions from unknown contributors shown at the same level as PRs from known quality contributors, for example?

We need to rethink some UX design and processes here, not pretend low quality people are going to follow your "no low quality pls i'm serious >:(" rules. Rather, design the processes against low quality.

Also, we're in a new world where code-change PRs are trivial, and the hard part isn't writing code anymore but generating the spec. Maybe we don't even allow PRs anymore except for trusted contributors, everyone else can only create an issue and help refine a plan there which the code impl is derived?

You know, even before LLMs, it would have been pretty cool if we had a better process around deliberating and collaborating around a plan before the implementation step of any non-trivial code change. Changing code in a PR with no link to discussion around what the impl should actually look like always did feel like the cart before the horse.

[bombcar]

Because until now, unknown contributors either submitted obvious junk which could be closed by even an unskilled moderator (I've done triage work for OS projects before) or they submitted something that was workable and a good start.

The latter is where you get all known contributors from! So if you close off unknown contributors the project will eventually stagnate and die.

[SlinkyOnStairs]

In the long distant past of 4-5 years ago, it simply wasn't a problem. Few projects were overwhelmed with PRs to begin with.

And for the major projects where there was a flood of PRs, it was fairly easy to identify if someone knew what they were talking about by looking at their language; Correct use of jargon, especially domain-specific jargon.

The broader reason why "unknown contributor" PRs were held in high regard is that, outside of some specific incidents (thank you, DigitalOcean and your stupid tshirts), the odds were pretty good of a drive by PR coming from someone who identified a problem in your software by using it. Those are incredibly valuable PRs, especially as the work of diagnosing the problem generally also identifies the solution.

It's very hard to design a UX that impedes clueless fools spamming PRs but not the occasional random person finding sincere issues and having the time to identify (and fix them) but not permanent project contribution.

> and the hard part isn't writing code anymore but generating the spec

My POV: This is a bunch of crap and always has been.

Any sufficiently detailed specification is code. And the cost of writing such a specification is the cost of writing code. Every time "low code" has been tried, it doesn't work for this very reason.

e.g. The work of a ticket "Create a product category for 'Lime'" consists not of adding a database entry and typing in the word 'Lime', it consists of the human work of calling your client and asking whether it should go under Fruit or Cement.

[sheepscreek]

I don’t know why you got downvoted. Those are good points.

Contrary to popular belief, I believe open-source projects are poised for a significant windfall. If a project lacks the ability to transform a good problem into an advantage, that’s their prerogative, but it shouldn’t be the norm (I hope not).

I like to think of it as a stranger/volunteer using their tokens to give the project maintainers a choice. Imagine each issue having 3-4 PRs - it’s a brave new world that demands new solutions!

From a place of scarcity - to now picking from multiple PRs, not a bad problem to have. This is turning into a signal vs noise optimization problem. Could it be solved with agents specially fine-tuned for this use-case? Maybe. Why not?

Also many projects on GitHub do have discussions (typically in a long Issues thread) before someone opens a PR.

[bityard]

> because the alternative is to ban submissions from people without reputation, and that'd be very harmful to open source.

Hmmm, no? That's actually very common in open source. Maybe "banning" isn't the right word, but lots of projects don't accept random drive-by submissions and never have. Debian is a perfect example, you are very unlikely to get a nontrivial patch or package into Debian unless you have some kind of interaction or rapport with a package maintainer, or commit to the process of building trust to become a maintainer yourself.

I have seen high profile GitHub projects that summarily close PRs if you didn't raise the bug/feature as an issue or join their discord first.

[SlinkyOnStairs]

Setting aside "make an issue first" because those too are flooded with LLMs.

> you are very unlikely to get a nontrivial patch or package into Debian unless you have some kind of interaction or rapport with a package maintainer

I did mean the "trivial" patches as well, as often it's a lot of these small little fixes to single issues that improve software quality overall.

But yes, it's true that it's not uncommon for projects to refuse outside PRs.

This already causes massive amounts of friction and contributes (heh) heavily to what makes Open Source such a pain in the ass to use.

Conversely, many popular "good" open source libraries rely extensively on this inflow of small contributions to become comprehensively good.

And so it's a tradeoff. Forcing all open source into refusing drive-by PRs will have costs. What makes sense for major security-sensitive projects with large resources doesn't make sense for others.

It's not that we won't have open source at all. It's that it'll just be worse and encourage further fragmentation. e.g. One doesn't build a good .ZIP library by carefully reading the specification, you get it by collecting a million little examples of weird zip files in the wild breaking your code.

[LtWorf]

You can literally just attach a patch to a bugreport on debian…

[dudeinhawaii]

I don't see why we can't have AI powered reviews as a verification of truth and trust score modifier. Let me explain.

1. You layout policy stating that all code, especially AI code has to be written to a high quality level and have been reviewed for issues prior to submission.

2. Given that even the fastest AI models do a great job of code reviews, you setup an agent using Codex-Spark or Sonnnet, etc to scan submissions for a few different dimensions (maintainability, security, etc).

3. If a submission comes through that fails review, that's a strong indication that the submitter hasn't put even the lowest effort into reviewing their own code. Especially since most AI models will flag similar issues. Knock their trust score down and supply feedback.

3a. If the submitter never acts on the feedback - close the submission and knock the trust score down even more.

3b. If the submitter acts on the feedback - boost trust score slightly. We now have a self-reinforcing loop that pushes thoughtful submitters to screen their own code. (Or ai models to iterate and improve their own code)

4. Submission passes and trust score of submitter meets some minimal threshold. Queued for human review pending prioritization.

I haven't put much thought into this but it seems like you could design a system such that "clout chasing" or "bot submissions" would be forced to either deliver something useful or give up _and_ lose enough trust score that you can safely shadowban them.

[SlinkyOnStairs]

The immediate problem is just cost. Open Source has no money, so any fancy AI solution is off the table immediately.

In terms of your plan though, you're just building a generative adversarial network here. Automated review is relatively easy to "attack".

Yet human contributors don't put up with having to game an arbitrary score system. StackOverflow imploded in no small part because of it.

[lich_king]

> Precisely. “AI” contributions should be seen as an extension of the individual.

That's an OK view to hold, but I'll point out two things. First, it's not how the tech is usually wielded to interact with open-source software. Second, your worldview is at odds with the owners of this technology: the main reason why so much money is being poured into AI coding is that it's seen by investors as a replacement for the individual.

[sheepscreek]

I know. But the irony is, agents, that is AI, need to collaborate with other agents, so other AI, to get any work done. Collaboration is at the core of how work takes place. As humans or as machines. So I don’t necessarily think Open Source will disappear. It will evolve and turn into something very different and more powerful.

[aerodexis]

Interesting argument for AI ethics in general. It takes the form of "guns don't kill people - people kill people".

[glhaynes]

An argument that I have some sympathy for, while still being moderately+ in favor of gun control (here in the USA where I'm a citizen).

It seems that gun control—though imperfect—in regions that have implemented it has had a good bit of success and the legitimate/non-harmful capabilities lost seem worth it to me in trade for the gains. (Reasonable people can disagree here!)

Whereas it seems to me that if we accept the proposition that the vast majority of code in the future is going to be written by AI (and I do), these valuable projects that are taking hard-line stances against it are going to find themselves either having to retreat from that position or facing insurmountable difficulties in staying relevant while holding to their stance.

[estebank]

> these valuable projects that are taking hard-line stances against it are going to find themselves either having to retreat from that position or facing insurmountable difficulties in staying relevant while holding to their stance.

It is the conservative position: it will be easier to walk back the policy and start accepting AI produced code some time down the road when its benefits are clearer than it will be to excise AI produced code from years prior if there's a technical or social reason to do that.

Even if the promise of AI is fulfilled and projects that don't use it are comparatively smaller, that doesn't mean there's no value in that, in the same way that people still make furniture in wood with traditional methods today even if a company can make the same widget cheaper in an almost fully automated way.

[duskdozer]

The AI hype machine is pushing the "inevitability" and "left behind" sentiments to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance, and they have the profit and power incentives to do so and drive mass adoption. It is far from certain that AI will be indispensable or that people will "fall behind" for not using it.

Why would the AI-fans even care if others who decide not to use it fall behind? Wouldn't they get to point and laugh and enjoy the benefits of "keeping up"? Their fervor should be looked at with suspicion.

[glhaynes]

If you're addressing this to me: you need to separate my description of how I perceive things from any effort/desire on my part to make that come to pass. I don't expect to stand to gain if AI continues to get better at coding — most likely just the opposite; this is the first time in my career that I've ever felt much anxiety about whether I'd be able to find work in my field in the future.

There are many others like me who share this expectation, and, while we certainly may be wrong, it's not because of some sinister plan to make the prophecy come true. (There are certainly some who do have sinister/profit-seeking motives, of course!)

[datsci_est_2015]

> It seems that gun control—though imperfect—in regions that have implemented it has had a good bit of success and the legitimate/non-harmful capabilities lost seem worth it to me in trade for the gains.

This is even true despite the fact that there are bad actors only a few minutes drive away in many cases (Chicago->Indiana border, for example).

[jazzyjackson]

Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”

[aerodexis]

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)

[dataflow]

I don't think any side on the issue of gun ownership has ever claimed that statement is false, so I'm not sure what your point is.

[johnnyanmac]

The point is thst this is a common pro-gun argument to deflect from the fact that making guns harder to own does in fact reduce gun violence. Which is how much of the rest of the world works.

But post Sandy Hook, it's clear which side prevailed in this argument.

[dataflow]

Except it seems to be arguing in the exact opposite direction, and about the other side of the problem?

Those in favor of gun control aren't trying to lower human responsibility, they're trying to place stricter limits on the guns than the status quo. Those against gun control are trying to loosen limits on the guns.

Here this person is proposing making individual responsibility stricter compared than what it is today. And they're not arguing for loosening limits on the tech either.

Isn't that practically the opposite of your analogy?

[nancyminusone]

Of course you can tell. If someone suddenly submits a mountainous pile of code out of nowhere that claims to fix every problem, you can make a reasonable estimate that the author used AI. It's then equally reasonable to suggest said author might not have taken the requisite time and detail to understand the scope of the problem.

This is the basis of the argument - it doesn't matter if you use AI or not, but it does matter if you know what you're doing or not.

[wadim]

Why accept PR's in this case, if the maintainers themselves can ask their favorite LLM to implement a feature/fix an issue?

[theptip]

Obviously - it takes effort to hone the idea/spec, and it takes time to validate the result. Code being free doesn’t make a kernel patch free, though it would make it cheaper.

[FrojoS]

Because it might require time consuming testing, iterations, documentation etc.

If everything the maintainer wants can (hypothetically) be one-shotted, then there is no need to accept PR's at all. Just allow forks in case of open source.

[gshulegaard]

I don't know, it's a pretty leap for me to consider AI being hard to distinguish from human contributions.

AI is predictive at a token level. I think the usefulness and power of this has been nothing short of astonishing; but this token prediction is fundamentally limiting. The difference between human _driven_ vs AI generated code is usually in design. Overly verbose and leaky abstractions, too many small abstractions that don't provide clear value, broad sweeping refactors when smaller more surgical changes would have met the immediate goals, etc. are the hallmarks of AI generated code in my experience. I don't think those will go away until there is another generational leap beyond just token prediction.

That said, I used human "driven" instead of human "written" somewhat intentionally. I think AI in even its current state will become a revolutionary productivity boosting developer aid (it already is to some degree). Not dissimilar to a other development tools like debuggers and linters, but with much broader usefulness and impact. If a human uses AI in creating a PR, is that something to worry about? If a contribution can pass review and related process checks; does it matter how much or how little AI was used in it's creation?

Personally, my answer is no. But there is a vast difference between a human using AI and an AI generated contribution being able to pass as human. I think there will be increasing degrees of the former, but the latter is improbable to impossible without another generational leap in AI research/technology (at least IMO).

---

As a side note, over usage of AI to generate code _is_ a problem I am currently wrangling with. Contributors who are over relying on vibecoding are creating material overhead in code review and maintenance in my current role. It's making maintenance, which was already a long tail cost generally, an acute pain.

[iLoveOncall]

> but in 3-10 years AI will get significantly better

Crystal ball or time machine?

[pjerem]

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.

[bigstrat2003]

> 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 already stagnated and isn't significantly better than it was 3 years ago. I don't see how it's supposed to get better still when the improvement has already stopped.

[pjerem]

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.

[LtWorf]

Are we still doing the "your fault for not using this other model" thing? It's a bit of a tired trope at this point.

[pjerem]

I was asking which tool, not which, not which model.

For the same model, you can just have it generate dad jokes or use it in a tool like OpenCode or Cursor or Zed or Cline or … and make it program complex things.

If I use Claude Sonnet on duck.ai I will have hard time generating something interesting. The same model in OpenCode does all my programming work.

[cruffle_duffle]

I mean, the person above complaining about it not being able to create a simple thing is absolutely holding them wrong! They aren’t feeding the right context, aren’t using the correct tools or harnesses, who knows. But the problem exists between keyboard and chair, so to speak.

I’m constantly amazed at the amount of scope I can now one-shot with Claude Code. It can crank out multi command cli apps with almost zero hand holding beyond telling what to generate… you know, the hard part. And then we’ll back and forth to refine the working thing it built.

[pixl97]

>isn't significantly better than it was 3 years ago.

Eh?

Ever hear the saying the first 90% of a problem is 90% of the work, the last 10% of the program is also 90% of the work.

AI/LLMs have improved massively in that context. That's not even including the other model types such as visual/motion-visual/audio which are to the point that telling their output from reality is a chore.

And one shotting a simple script simply doesn't mean much without context. I have it dump relatively complex powershell scripts often enough and it's helped me a lot with being able to explain scripting actions to other humans where before I'd make assumptions about the other users knowledge where it was not warranted.

[johnnyanmac]

The biggest grift is invested tech Bro's trying to sell you on thr fact that Ai growth is linear or even exponential.

In reality it's Logarithmic. Maybe with the occasional jolt. You'd think with Moores "law" that we'd know better by now that explosive growth isn't forever. Or at least that we're bound to physics as a cap to hit.

[veunes]

The system works because responsibility sits with the submitter

[bigfishrunning]

Whether the quality of the code is the responsibility of the submitter or not is kind of irrelevant though, because the cost of verifying that quality still falls on the maintainer. If every submitter could be trusted to do their due diligence then this cost would be less, but unfortunately they can't; it's human nature to take every possible shortcut.

[INTPenis]

They can't, anyone who uses the tool correctly will be indistinguishable from their regular code contributions.

The ones that make the headlines here on HN are not subtle at all, they're probably the bottom of the barrel of AI users.

[mrbungie]

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.

That's not to say that an human can't use AI with intent, but then AI becomes another tool and not an autonomous code generating agent.

[AlexandrB]

> 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.

[bombcar]

They are consistent and decent, though arguably some are even good (though everyone usually has a preferred fast food destination).

Some of the best burgers I've ever had came from fast food.

[nunez]

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.

[mrbungie]

Fair enough, I should've said borderline decent.

[pixl97]

Probably more of the measure of the Deluxe burger, which if fresh doesn't seem to have any faults for a burger. Now the little McFrankinstines leave much to be desired.

[johnnyanmac]

Let's burn that bridge when we get to it. I'm not even sure what 2027 will look like at this rate. There's no point concerning about 2035 when things are so tumultuous today.

[BoredPositron]

Intent matters. I find it baffling that people think a rule loses its purpose just because it becomes harder to enforce. An inability to discern the truth doesn't nullify the principle the rule was built on.

[Jleagle]

Isn't your prediction a good thing? People prefer humans currently as they are better but if AI is just as good, doesn't that just mean more good PRs?

[coldpie]

> but if AI is just as good, doesn't that just mean more good PRs?

If you believe the outputs of LLMs are derivative products of the materials the LLMs were trained on (which is a position I lean towards myself, but I also understand the viewpoint of those who disagree), then no, that's not a good thing, because it would be a license violation to accept those derived products without following the original material's license terms, such as attribution and copyleft terms. You are now party to violating the original materials' copyright by accepting AI generated code. That's ethically dubious, even if those original authors may have a hard time bringing a court case against you.

[graemep]

> 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, which is it ethically dubious to breach this law in this particular way?

[coldpie]

> 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 to use someone else's work without compensating them in the manner they declared. Copyright law happens to be the method we've used for a couple hundred years to standardize the discussion about that compensation, and sometimes enforce it. Breaching the law doesn't really enter into the conversation, except as a way our society agrees to hold everyone to a minimum ethical standard.

[graemep]

> 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.

[hombre_fatal]

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 productively and they know there's no way for you to tell, and low value people never cared about wasting your time with low effort output, so the rule is performative.

e.g. If you tell me AI isn't allowed because it writes bad code, then you're clearly not talking to someone who uses AI to plan, specify, and implement high quality code.

[datsci_est_2015]

> 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 human understanding, and if you’re not a core contributor who’s proven you’re willing to stick around when shit hits the fan, a +3000 PR is a liability, not an asset.

Maybe there needs to be something like the MMORPG concept of “Dragon Kill Points (DKP)”, where you’re not entitled to loot (contribution) until you’ve proven that you give a shit.

[bombcar]

> Unfortunately for AI maximalists, code is more than just letters on the screen. There needs to be human understanding, and if you’re not a core contributor who’s proven you’re willing to stick around when shit hits the fan, a +3000 PR is a liability, not an asset.

This isn't necessarily true; I've seen some projects absorb a PR of roughly that size, and after the smoke tests and other standard development stuff, the original PR author basically disappeared.

It added a feature he wanted, he tested and coded it, and got it in.

[datsci_est_2015]

So because some projects can absorb some PRs of a certain size, all projects of should be able to absorb PRs of that same size?

This anecdotal argument is a dead end. The nuance is clear: not all software is the same, and not all edits to software are the same.

[ApolloFortyNine]

>So because some projects can absorb some PRs of a certain size, all projects of should be able to absorb PRs of that same size?

Your argument has nothing to do with AI and more to do with PR size and 'fire and forget' feature merges. That's what the commenter your responding to is pointing out.

[datsci_est_2015]

And my entire point is that LLM-generated feature requests are strongly correlated with high risk merge requests / pull requests, to which the commenter made no meaningful argument against. Instead the commenter chose to focus on the size of the PR and say “well I’ve seen it in the wild”.

The way to get around this without getting all the LLM influencer bros in an uproar is to come up with a system that allows open source libraries to evaluate the risk of a PR (including the author’s ability to explain wtf the code does) without referencing AI because apparently it’s an easily-triggered community.

[darkwater]

> and if you’re not a core contributor who’s proven you’re willing to stick around when shit hits the fan, a +3000 PR is a liability, not an asset.

And in the context of high-value contributors that GP was mentioning, they are never going to land a +3000 PR because they know there is going to be a human reviewer on the other side.

[pixl97]

>where you’re not entitled to loot (contribution) until you’ve proven that you give a shit.

So what metric are you going to try to use to prove yourself?

[sigseg1v]

Vibe coded slop is a 50 DKP minus of course

[fwip]

> high value contributors won't follow it

High-value contributors follow the rules and social mores of the community they are contributing to. If they intentionally deceive others, they are not high-value.

[pixl97]

Ah, the no true Scotsman theory.

[thunderfork]

Arguing that "doesn't secretly, sneakily break project rules" is an essential component of a quality contributor isn't a "no true scotsman" argument, it's a statement about qualifications

[pixl97]

You see where this becomes a religious like argument right? Since it's secretly and sneakily there is no way to measure it. So as far as any other participant knows there is no measurable difference, hence your argument depends on said agents to be 'pure' and 'true', hence the exact definition of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

I hope you see how this quickly will advance from a project being about accomplishing some goal, to a project becoming about humans showing they are the ones writing code. Much like we see in religions where people don't give money to the poor to benefit the poor, but show they give money to the poor to benefit themselves. Hence the game playing will continue and the underlying problem will never be addressed.

[thunderfork]

The point of the rule isn't enforcement, it's setting standards for good-faith contributors.

Your assumption that all rules must be about enforcement is incorrect. Your assumption that only that which can be measured matters is incorrect. I don't know where this belief system comes from, but it strikes me as profoundly toxic.

By this logic, we obviously shouldn't ban drinking and driving - there's no way to test every driver every time, and presumably those most skilled at drunk driving would be undetectable, so it's really just religious moralism.

"Good drivers don't drink and drive even if they think they can get away with it" is just a no-true-scotsman argument, and thus we should actually encourage people to drink and drive so that they get better at it. Nobody should ever have any standards that can't be automatically enforced by a linter, after all.

And look: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079

Unenforceable rules might just be the backbone of society, if you think about it.

[hombre_fatal]

This is a good example of my point.

Instead of progressing to a system resilient to the fact that you can't know how code was written, you've created a rule that, because it's unenforceable and deniable, must retreat to moralization about what someone does in private.

That might make you feel good, but it won't work.

[fwip]

The same argument applies to not including copyrighted code. I can't possibly know if a contribution is a direct copy of some private code somewhere, but it's still reasonable to have a policy against it.

[beepbooptheory]

But then why have any contributions at all?

Like its been years and years now, if all this is true, you'd think there would be more of a paradigm shift? I'm happy I guess waiting for Godot like everyone else, but the shadows are getting a little long now, people are starting to just repeat the same things over and over.

Like, I am so tired now, it's causing such messes everywhere. Can all the best things about AI be manifest soon? Is there a timeline?

Like what can I take so that I can see the brave new world just out of reach? Where can I go? If I could just even taste the mindset of the true believer for a moment, I feel like it would be a reprieve.

[pixl97]

> Where can I go?

Off the internet. Maybe it's just time we all face the public internet is dead.

Maybe a trusted private internet, though that comes with it's own risks and tradeoffs.

Maybe we start doing PRs over mailed USB keys. Anyone with enough interest will do it, but it will cut out the bots. We're back to a 90's sneakernet. Any internet presence may become a read only site telling others how to reach you offline.

The information superhighway died a long time ago. 4chan enlightened me on the power of intelligent stupidity. The machinations of a few smart people could embolden countless stupid people to cause nearly unlimited damage. Social media gathering up the smart and dumb alike allowed bullshit asymmetry to explode onto the scene and burned out anyone with a modicum of intelligence.

[nananana9]

I don't see an issue here. You keep using AI to create high value contributions in the projects that accept it, I will keep not using it in mine, and we can see who wins out in 10 years.

[lpcvoid]

All LLM-output is slop. There's no good LLM output. It's stolen code, stolen literature, stolen media condensed into the greatest heist of the 21. century. Perfect capitalism - big LLM companies don't need to pay royalties to humans, while selling access to a service which generates monthly revenue.

[hombre_fatal]

Whether it trained on real world "stolen" code is an implementation detail. A controversial one, but it isn't a supporting argument for whether it can write high quality, functional code or not.

[jacquesm]

Sorry, but no, that is not a detail, that is a major sticking point for me.

[__alexs]

I came from a poor background and stole pretty much all the textbooks I used to learn programming as a kid. I also stole all the music I listened to while studying them. Is everything I write slop for the same reason?

[lpcvoid]

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, emotions and character which came before it.

[the_biot]

A quote from Neuromancer comes to mind:

   "But I ain't likely to write you no poem, if you follow me. Your AI, it just might. But it ain't no way human.”

[__alexs]

The Neo-Victorian perspective of The Diamond Age is not a luxury most of us are going to be able to afford unfortunately.

[sigbottle]

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 matter", so hey, we've obviously made progress!

[bigstrat2003]

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.

[Fnoord]

> I don't know why this got downvoted. I've already been so frustrated by HN LIDAR mindsets but holy shit

The extreme sides (proponents, opponents) are clear, opposites, and fight each other. More nuanced takes get buried as droplets in a bucket. Likely a goal.

> Human society exists because we value humans, full stop.

Call me cynic, but I do not believe every human being agrees with this sentiment. From HR acting as if humans are resources, to human beings being dehumanized as workers, civilians, cannon fodder, and... well, the product. Every time human rights are violated, and we do not stand up to it, we lose.

I have a very simple question as human right: the right for a human being to know the other side is a human being yes or no, and if not: to speak gratis (no additional fee allowed) to a human being instead. Futhermore, ML must always cite the used sources, and ML programmer is responsible for mistake. This would increase insurance costs so much, that LLM's in public would die, but SLM's could thrive.

[pixl97]

>Human society exists because we value humans, full stop.

Eh, human society exists because it is an emergent behavior of the evolutionary advantage afforded at the time of adoption by the human species. There is on iron rule stating that it must continue into the future, or even that it can exist into the future.

More so, the value of a human has wildly fluctuated over history and culture. The village chief, nobles, the king were all high value humans. The villagers would be middle to low value, and others may be considered no value.

The industrial age began to change this some as value started to move from the merchant class to the villager class as many high production jobs needed less and less training to complete. With industrialization businesses running machines and production lines needed as many people as they could get. Still human rights were hard fought in places like America where labor wars broke out.

In the modern US we've setup a dangerous set of idealism that will most likely end in disaster because they are in conflict with general human values. That is the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", "Any collective action is communism and communism will turn you into a pillar of salt if you dare look at it", and "greed is good". Couple that with TV media and social media owned by rich billionaires you're not going to see much serious opposition to these ideals.

But if/as labor loses it's values, so will the humans that performed that labor. After decades of optimizing human society for maximal capital extraction, values are dead, and the ever present thought police owned by the rich will make sure you don't cause too much trouble by resurrecting them.

[mikkupikku]

I'm fine with calling all LLM outputs slop, but I'll draw the line at asserting there's no good LLM output. LLM output is good when it works, and we can easily verify that a lot of code from LLMs does work. That the code LLMs output is derive of copyrighted works is neither here nor there. First of all, ALL creative work is derivative. Secondly IP is absurd horse shit and we never should have humored the premise of it being treated like real property.

[sieep]

Well put. Im gonna start parroting this talking point more from now on.

[ronsor]

And I thought being a stochastic parrot was limited to LLMs, but apparently they learned it from somewhere...

[raincole]

https://xkcd.com/810/

I know it's a cliche but it's just too perfect to answer this question.

[simianwords]

with improvements, we wouldn't even talk about code. just designs and features!