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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 sec

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 8mo ago
Interesting argument for AI ethics in general. It takes the form of "guns don't kill people - people kill people".
- jazzyjackson 8mo ago
  Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”
  - aerodexis 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
    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 8mo ago
      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?
- glhaynes 8mo ago
  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.
  - datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
    > 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).
  - estebank 8mo ago
    > 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 8mo ago
    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 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.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
SlinkyOnStairs 8mo ago
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 8mo ago
  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.
  - SlinkyOnStairs 8mo ago
    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.
lich_king 8mo ago
> 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 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago

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

jazzyjackson 8mo ago
Unfortunately ChatGPT turned “text continuation” into “separate entity you can talk to”
- aerodexis 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago
    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?
glhaynes 8mo ago
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.
- datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
  > 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).
- estebank 8mo ago
  > 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 8mo ago
  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 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.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

SlinkyOnStairs 8mo ago

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 8mo ago
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.
- SlinkyOnStairs 8mo ago
  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.

lich_king 8mo ago

> 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 8mo ago
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.