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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 tel

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?

hombre_fatal 7mo ago
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.
- lpcvoid 7mo ago
  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.
  - sieep 7mo ago
    Well put. Im gonna start parroting this talking point more from now on.
    - ronsor 7mo ago
      And I thought being a stochastic parrot was limited to LLMs, but apparently they learned it from somewhere...
  - hombre_fatal 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
      Sorry, but no, that is not a detail, that is a major sticking point for me.
  - __alexs 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
        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.”
      - sigbottle 7mo ago
        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 7mo ago
        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.
  - mikkupikku 7mo ago
    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.
- datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
  > 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.
  - sigseg1v 7mo ago
    Vibe coded slop is a 50 DKP minus of course
  - cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - darkwater 7mo ago
    > 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.
  - bombcar 7mo ago
    > 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.
- beepbooptheory 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    > 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 7mo ago
  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.
- fwip 7mo ago
  > 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 7mo ago
    Ah, the no true Scotsman theory.
    - thunderfork 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
        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 7mo ago
        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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079 Unenforceable rules might just be the backbone of society, if you think about it.
Jleagle 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  > 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 7mo ago
    > 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 7mo ago
      > 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.
sheepscreek 7mo ago
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.
- aerodexis 7mo ago
  Interesting argument for AI ethics in general. It takes the form of "guns don't kill people - people kill people".
  - jazzyjackson 7mo ago
    Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”
    - aerodexis 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
BoredPositron 7mo ago
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.
mrbungie 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  > 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.
  - mrbungie 7mo ago
    Fair enough, I should've said borderline decent.
  - bombcar 7mo ago
    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.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    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.
  - nunez 7mo ago
    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.
wadim 7mo ago
Why accept PR's in this case, if the maintainers themselves can ask their favorite LLM to implement a feature/fix an issue?
- theptip 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
  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.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
lich_king 7mo ago
> 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.
iLoveOncall 7mo ago
> but in 3-10 years AI will get significantly better Crystal ball or time machine?
- pjerem 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    > 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 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
        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.
nancyminusone 7mo ago
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.
simianwords 7mo ago
with improvements, we wouldn't even talk about code. just designs and features!
johnnyanmac 7mo ago
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.
gshulegaard 7mo ago
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.
veunes 7mo ago
The system works because responsibility sits with the submitter
- bigfishrunning 7mo ago
  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.
raincole 7mo ago
https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ I know it's a cliche but it's just too perfect to answer this question.
INTPenis 7mo ago
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.

hombre_fatal 7mo ago

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.

lpcvoid 7mo ago
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.
- sieep 7mo ago
  Well put. Im gonna start parroting this talking point more from now on.
  - ronsor 7mo ago
    And I thought being a stochastic parrot was limited to LLMs, but apparently they learned it from somewhere...
- hombre_fatal 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    Sorry, but no, that is not a detail, that is a major sticking point for me.
- __alexs 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
      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.”
    - sigbottle 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
        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.
- mikkupikku 7mo ago
  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.
datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
> 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.
- sigseg1v 7mo ago
  Vibe coded slop is a 50 DKP minus of course
- cindyllm 7mo ago
  [dead]
- darkwater 7mo ago
  > 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.
- bombcar 7mo ago
  > 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.
beepbooptheory 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  > 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 7mo ago
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.
fwip 7mo ago
> 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 7mo ago
  Ah, the no true Scotsman theory.
  - thunderfork 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
      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 7mo ago
        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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079 Unenforceable rules might just be the backbone of society, if you think about it.

Jleagle 7mo ago

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 7mo ago
> 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 7mo ago
  > 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 7mo ago
    > 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.

sheepscreek 7mo ago

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.

aerodexis 7mo ago
Interesting argument for AI ethics in general. It takes the form of "guns don't kill people - people kill people".
- jazzyjackson 7mo ago
  Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”
  - aerodexis 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago

BoredPositron 7mo ago

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.

mrbungie 7mo ago

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 7mo ago
> 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.
- mrbungie 7mo ago
  Fair enough, I should've said borderline decent.
- bombcar 7mo ago
  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.
- pixl97 7mo ago
  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.
- nunez 7mo ago
  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.

wadim 7mo ago

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

theptip 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
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.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

lich_king 7mo ago

> 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.

iLoveOncall 7mo ago

> but in 3-10 years AI will get significantly better Crystal ball or time machine?

pjerem 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  > 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 7mo ago
    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 7mo ago
      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.

nancyminusone 7mo ago

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.

simianwords 7mo ago

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

johnnyanmac 7mo ago

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.

gshulegaard 7mo ago

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.

veunes 7mo ago

The system works because responsibility sits with the submitter

bigfishrunning 7mo ago
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.

raincole 7mo ago

https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ I know it's a cliche but it's just too perfect to answer this question.

INTPenis 7mo ago

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.