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That's just not true. I have 20 years of dev experience and also am using these tools. I won't commit slop. I'm open to being transparent about my usage of A

That's just not true. I have 20 years of dev experience and also am using these tools. I won't commit slop. I'm open to being transparent about my usage of AI but tbh right now there's so much bias and vitriol coming from people afraid of these new tools that in the haze of their fear I don't trust people will actually take the time to neutrally determine whether or not the code is actually slop. I've had manually written, well thought through, well conceived, rough around the edges code get called "AI slop" by a colleague (who I very much respect and have a good relationship with) who admittedly hadn't had a chance to thoroughly understand the code yet. If I just vibe-coded something and haven't looked at the code myself, that seems like a necessary thing to disclose. But beyond that, if the code is well understood and solid, I feel that I'd be clouding the conversation by unnecessarily bringing the tools I used into it. If I understand the code and feel confident in it, whether I used AI or not seems irrelevant and distracting. This policy is just shoving the real problem under the rug. Generative AI is going to require us to come up with better curation/filtering/selection tooling, in general. This heuristic of "whether or not someone self-disclosed using LLMs" just doesn't seem very useful in the long run. Maybe it's a piece of the puzzle but I'm pretty sure there are more useful ways to sift through PRs than that. Line count differences, for example. Whether it was a person with an LLM or a 10x coder without one, a PR that adds 15000 lines is just not likely to be it.

eschaton 1y ago
You should not just be open to being transparent, you need to understand that there will be times you will be required to be transparent about the tools you’ve used and the ultimate origin of your contributions, and that trying to evade or even push back against it is a huge red flag that you cannot be trusted to abide by your commitments. If you’re unwilling to stop using slop tools, then you don’t get to contribute to some projects, and you need to be accept that.
- blurbleblurble 1y ago
  Your blanket determination that the tools themselves are slop generators is an attitude I'm definitely not interested in engaging with in collaboration.
  - eschaton 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - blurbleblurble 1y ago
      I'd way sooner quit my job / not contribute than deal with someone who projects on me the way you have in this conversation.
      - eschaton 1y ago
        Enjoy being found out for fraudulently passing off work you didn’t do as your own then.
        blurbleblurble 1y ago
        Ironically as a practice I'm actually quite transparent about how I use LLMs and believe that destigmatising open conversation about use of these tools is actually really important, just not that it's a useful heuristic for whether or not some code is slop.
- ikiris 1y ago
  What tools did you use to generate this response? Please include the make and model of the devices, and what os and browser you were running, including all browser plugins and other code which had screen access at that time.
  - eschaton 1y ago
    [flagged]
gizmo686 1y ago
> I've had manually written, well thought through, well conceived, rough around the edges code get called "AI slop" by a colleague (who I very much respect and have a good relationship with) who admittedly hadn't had a chance to thoroughly understand the code yet. This is the core problem with AI that makes so many people upset. In the old days, if you get a substantial submission, you know a substantial amount of effort went into it. You know that someone at some point had a mental model of what the submission was. Even if they didn't translate that perfectly, you can still try to figure out what they meant and we're thinking. You know the submitter put forth significant effort. That is a real signal that they are both willing and able to do so to address going forward to address issues you raise. The existence of AI slop fundamentally breaks these assumptions. That is why we need enforced social norms around disclosure.
- blurbleblurble 1y ago
  We need better social norms about disclosure, but maybe those don't need to be about "whether or not you used LLMs" and might have more to do with "how well you understand the code you are opening a PR for" (or are reviewing, for that matter). Normalize draft PRs and sharing big messes of code you're not quite sure about but want to start a conversation about. Normalize admitting that you don't fully understand the code you've written / are tasked with reviewing and that this is perfectly fine and doesn't reflect poorly on you at all, in fact it reflects humility and a collaborative spirit. 10x engineers create so many bugs without AI, and vibe coding could multiply that to 100x. But let's not distract from the source of that, which is rewarding the false confidence it takes to pretend we understand stuff that we actually don't.
  - inferiorhuman 1y ago
    but maybe those don't need to be about "whether or not you used LLMs" and might have more to do with "how well you understand the code you are opening a PR for" (or are reviewing, for that matter) AI is a great proxy for how much someone has. If you're writing a PR you're demonstrating some manner of understanding. If you're submitting AI slop you're not.
mattgreenrocks 1y ago
I get it. But it’s ultimately up to the maintainer here.
- blurbleblurble 1y ago
  Of course. I don't actually think the maintainer guidelines here are entirely unreasonable, even if I'd personally modify them to reduce reactive panic. My little essay up there is more so a response to the heated "LLM people vs pure people" comments I'm reading all over this discussion. Some of this stuff just seems entirely misguided and fear driven.

eschaton 1y ago

You should not just be open to being transparent, you need to understand that there will be times you will be required to be transparent about the tools you’ve used and the ultimate origin of your contributions, and that trying to evade or even push back against it is a huge red flag that you cannot be trusted to abide by your commitments. If you’re unwilling to stop using slop tools, then you don’t get to contribute to some projects, and you need to be accept that.

blurbleblurble 1y ago
Your blanket determination that the tools themselves are slop generators is an attitude I'm definitely not interested in engaging with in collaboration.
- eschaton 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - blurbleblurble 1y ago
    I'd way sooner quit my job / not contribute than deal with someone who projects on me the way you have in this conversation.
    - eschaton 1y ago
      Enjoy being found out for fraudulently passing off work you didn’t do as your own then.
      - blurbleblurble 1y ago
        Ironically as a practice I'm actually quite transparent about how I use LLMs and believe that destigmatising open conversation about use of these tools is actually really important, just not that it's a useful heuristic for whether or not some code is slop.
ikiris 1y ago
What tools did you use to generate this response? Please include the make and model of the devices, and what os and browser you were running, including all browser plugins and other code which had screen access at that time.
- eschaton 1y ago
  [flagged]

gizmo686 1y ago

> I've had manually written, well thought through, well conceived, rough around the edges code get called "AI slop" by a colleague (who I very much respect and have a good relationship with) who admittedly hadn't had a chance to thoroughly understand the code yet. This is the core problem with AI that makes so many people upset. In the old days, if you get a substantial submission, you know a substantial amount of effort went into it. You know that someone at some point had a mental model of what the submission was. Even if they didn't translate that perfectly, you can still try to figure out what they meant and we're thinking. You know the submitter put forth significant effort. That is a real signal that they are both willing and able to do so to address going forward to address issues you raise. The existence of AI slop fundamentally breaks these assumptions. That is why we need enforced social norms around disclosure.

blurbleblurble 1y ago
We need better social norms about disclosure, but maybe those don't need to be about "whether or not you used LLMs" and might have more to do with "how well you understand the code you are opening a PR for" (or are reviewing, for that matter). Normalize draft PRs and sharing big messes of code you're not quite sure about but want to start a conversation about. Normalize admitting that you don't fully understand the code you've written / are tasked with reviewing and that this is perfectly fine and doesn't reflect poorly on you at all, in fact it reflects humility and a collaborative spirit. 10x engineers create so many bugs without AI, and vibe coding could multiply that to 100x. But let's not distract from the source of that, which is rewarding the false confidence it takes to pretend we understand stuff that we actually don't.
- inferiorhuman 1y ago
  but maybe those don't need to be about "whether or not you used LLMs" and might have more to do with "how well you understand the code you are opening a PR for" (or are reviewing, for that matter) AI is a great proxy for how much someone has. If you're writing a PR you're demonstrating some manner of understanding. If you're submitting AI slop you're not.

mattgreenrocks 1y ago

I get it. But it’s ultimately up to the maintainer here.

blurbleblurble 1y ago
Of course. I don't actually think the maintainer guidelines here are entirely unreasonable, even if I'd personally modify them to reduce reactive panic. My little essay up there is more so a response to the heated "LLM people vs pure people" comments I'm reading all over this discussion. Some of this stuff just seems entirely misguided and fear driven.