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It's not a self-own, it's honest disclosure. It's unethical (if not outright fraudulent) to publish LLM work as if it were your own. Claude setting itself as

It's not a self-own, it's honest disclosure. It's unethical (if not outright fraudulent) to publish LLM work as if it were your own. Claude setting itself as coauthor is a good way to address this problem, and it doing so by default is a very good thing.

zeroonetwothree 7mo ago
I think it depends a lot if you reviewed it as carefully as you would your own code. Of course most people don’t do that
- mikkupikku 7mo ago
  I don't put human code reviewers down as coauthors let alone the sole authors of my commit. So honestly, the fact that a vibe coded commit lists me as the author at all is a little bit dodgy but I think I'm okay with it. The LLM needs to be coauthor at least though, if not outright the author. So even if I go over the commit with a fine tooth comb and feel comfortable staking my personal reputation on the commit, I still can't call myself the sole author.
  - hombre_fatal 7mo ago
    The implementor only got credit in the day where the implementor was a human who had to do a lot of the work, often all of the work. Now that the cost of writing code is $0, the planner gets the credit. Like how you don't put human code reviewers down as coauthors, you also don't put the computer down as a coauthor for everything you use the computer to do. It used to be the case where if someone wrote the software, you knew they put in a certain amount of work writing it and planning it. I think the main issue now is that you can't know that anymore. Even something that's vibe-coded might have many hours of serious iterative work and planning. But without using the output or deep-diving the code to get a sense of its polish, there's no way to tell if it is the result of a one-shot or a lot of serious work. "Coauthored by computer" doesn't help this distinction. And asking people to opt-in to some shame tag isn't a solution that generalizes nor fixes anything since the issue is with people who ship poor quality software. Instead we should demand good software just like we did when it was all human-written and still low quality.
    - alsetmusic 7mo ago
      > And asking people to opt-in to some shame tag isn't a solution that generalizes nor fixes anything. Instead we should demand good software just like we did when it was all human-written and still crappy. It’s not about shame. It’s about disclosure of effort / perceived-quality. And you’re right about the second part, but there’s even less chance of that being enforced / adopted.
      - hombre_fatal 7mo ago
        The problem is that you cannot get people to self-tag "this is crap / low effort". Especially not the worst actors that consistently generate garbage. If they could do that, then they wouldn't be wasting your time to begin with. They'd have the ability to go "nah this PR is trash". So the next idea is that we can find some sort of proxy, like whether someone used an LLM or not. But that's too ham-fisted since expert engineers with all the self-awareness also use the tool, and they have the ability and self-awareness to know that the software they are shipping is good quality, so why would they use the shame tag? The shame tag has no audience. It's a fantasy that low quality actors will self-identify, else all sorts of societal problems would be made trivial.
    - mikkupikku 7mo ago
      Characterizing it as a "shame tag" is a value judgement I simply don't share, but if that framing is made common them you're definitely asking for people to lie about it.
- raphinou 7mo ago
  In my project's readme I put this text: "There is no commit by an agent user, for two reasons: * If an agent commits locally during development, the code is reviewed and often thoroughly modified and rearranged by a human. * I don't want to push unreviewed code to the repo, so I have set up a git hook refusing to push commits done by an LLM agent." It's not that I want to hide the use of llms, I just modified code a lot before pushing, which led me to this approach. As llms improve, I might have to change this though. Interested to read opinions on this approach.
  - embedding-shape 7mo ago
    > * I don't want to push unreviewed code to the repo, so I have set up a git hook refusing to push commits done by an LLM agent." Seems... Not that useful? Why would someone make commits in your local projects without you knowing about it? That git hook only works on your own machine, so you're trying to prevent yourself from pushing code you haven't reviewed, but the only way that can happen is if you use an agent locally that also make commits, and you aren't aware of it? I'm not sure how you'd end up in that situation, unless you have LLMs running autonomously on your computer that you don't have actual runtime insights into? Which seems like it'd be a way bigger problem than "code I didn't reviewed was pushed".
    - raphinou 7mo ago
      The agents run in a container and have an other git identity configured. It happens that agents commit code and I don't want to push it accidentally from outside the container, which is where I work.
- singpolyma3 7mo ago
  Not just review but how you worked with the AI. If you gave it four words and waited and hour maybe you're not the author. But that's not how these tools are best used anyway.
palmotea 7mo ago
> It's unethical (if not outright fraudulent) to publish LLM work as if it were your own. I disagree on that. It's really a gray area. If it's some lazy vibecoded shit, I think what you say totally applies. If the human did the thinking, gave the agent detailed instructions, and/or carefully reviewed the output, then I don't think it's so clear cut. And full disclosure, I'm reacting more to copilot here, which lists itself as the author and you as the co-author. I'm not giving credit to the machine, like I'm some appendage to it (which is totally what the powers-that-be want me to become). > Claude setting itself as coauthor is a good way to address this problem, and it doing so by default is a very good thing. I do agree that's a sensible default.
- mannanj 7mo ago
  Telling someone you did something that you actually didn't do isn't a gray area, it's a lie. Using AI tools to code and then hiding that is unethical imo.
  - BeetleB 7mo ago
    > Telling someone you did something that you actually didn't do isn't a gray area, it's a lie. Pre-LLMs, various helper tools (including LSPs), would make code changes to improve the quality of the code - from simple things like adding a const specifier to a function, to changing the actual function being called. No one insisted that the commit shouldn't have the human's name on it.
    - isjciwjdieh 7mo ago
      These are not anywhere near equivalent. The fact that you think they are is laughable.
    - mannanj 7mo ago
      I guess that was a lie, too. Though it was more tolerated and accepted per our norms as a society. Though I do see the gray area now too. The gray area is in the gap of "how much" help is given. Does a tool that does most of the coding, thinking and implementation for you still count as your work if you gave it the goal, guidance and architecture? Yes. And what I want to know as the peer of the person using such a tool, call it AI, is to what degree it did the work and how much of it you validated. Since the other tools pre-AI were more validated by the humans using them, I as the peer know the outputs pass a basic level of quality. I know the human was mostly involved in their production and creation. AI breaks this assumption and now many humans are producing outputs that require an unpredictable level of review by peers - as this is a big change in the norms of our society, I think its OK to call it out as a requirement to label output as AI-assisted/generated and/or to specify how much and how AI was involved and call it unethical if not done so. (I think it's not necessary or helpful to call out the use of the pre-AI era tools as unethical or a lie, even though they are too).
stronglikedan 7mo ago
Should Word set itself as my coauthor when it autocompletes some sentences for me? If I use Claude/Word to write something, then I am the only author, since Claude/Word is not a person, and Claude/Word did nothing without my direction. It's not unethical to not disclose the tools I use to produce my work. They're just tools, smdh.
- spacechild1 7mo ago
  With Word autocomplete you're still actively writing your text. Wouldn't it be more fair to compare this with autocompletion in IDEs? IANAL so I appreciate any legal experts to correct me here. In my understanding, there have been court decisions that LLM output itself is not copyrightable. You can only claim authorship (and therefore copyright) if you have significantly transformed the output. If you are truely vibing coding to the point where you don't even look at the generated code, how exactly are you transforming the LLM output? Also, what if the LLM reproduces existing copyrighted code? There has been a court decision last year in Germany that says that OpenAI violates German copyright law because ChatGPT may recreate existing song lyrics (that are licensed by GEMA) or create very similar variations.

zeroonetwothree 7mo ago

I think it depends a lot if you reviewed it as carefully as you would your own code. Of course most people don’t do that

mikkupikku 7mo ago
I don't put human code reviewers down as coauthors let alone the sole authors of my commit. So honestly, the fact that a vibe coded commit lists me as the author at all is a little bit dodgy but I think I'm okay with it. The LLM needs to be coauthor at least though, if not outright the author. So even if I go over the commit with a fine tooth comb and feel comfortable staking my personal reputation on the commit, I still can't call myself the sole author.
- hombre_fatal 7mo ago
  The implementor only got credit in the day where the implementor was a human who had to do a lot of the work, often all of the work. Now that the cost of writing code is $0, the planner gets the credit. Like how you don't put human code reviewers down as coauthors, you also don't put the computer down as a coauthor for everything you use the computer to do. It used to be the case where if someone wrote the software, you knew they put in a certain amount of work writing it and planning it. I think the main issue now is that you can't know that anymore. Even something that's vibe-coded might have many hours of serious iterative work and planning. But without using the output or deep-diving the code to get a sense of its polish, there's no way to tell if it is the result of a one-shot or a lot of serious work. "Coauthored by computer" doesn't help this distinction. And asking people to opt-in to some shame tag isn't a solution that generalizes nor fixes anything since the issue is with people who ship poor quality software. Instead we should demand good software just like we did when it was all human-written and still low quality.
  - alsetmusic 7mo ago
    > And asking people to opt-in to some shame tag isn't a solution that generalizes nor fixes anything. Instead we should demand good software just like we did when it was all human-written and still crappy. It’s not about shame. It’s about disclosure of effort / perceived-quality. And you’re right about the second part, but there’s even less chance of that being enforced / adopted.
    - hombre_fatal 7mo ago
      The problem is that you cannot get people to self-tag "this is crap / low effort". Especially not the worst actors that consistently generate garbage. If they could do that, then they wouldn't be wasting your time to begin with. They'd have the ability to go "nah this PR is trash". So the next idea is that we can find some sort of proxy, like whether someone used an LLM or not. But that's too ham-fisted since expert engineers with all the self-awareness also use the tool, and they have the ability and self-awareness to know that the software they are shipping is good quality, so why would they use the shame tag? The shame tag has no audience. It's a fantasy that low quality actors will self-identify, else all sorts of societal problems would be made trivial.
  - mikkupikku 7mo ago
    Characterizing it as a "shame tag" is a value judgement I simply don't share, but if that framing is made common them you're definitely asking for people to lie about it.
raphinou 7mo ago
In my project's readme I put this text: "There is no commit by an agent user, for two reasons: * If an agent commits locally during development, the code is reviewed and often thoroughly modified and rearranged by a human. * I don't want to push unreviewed code to the repo, so I have set up a git hook refusing to push commits done by an LLM agent." It's not that I want to hide the use of llms, I just modified code a lot before pushing, which led me to this approach. As llms improve, I might have to change this though. Interested to read opinions on this approach.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago
  > * I don't want to push unreviewed code to the repo, so I have set up a git hook refusing to push commits done by an LLM agent." Seems... Not that useful? Why would someone make commits in your local projects without you knowing about it? That git hook only works on your own machine, so you're trying to prevent yourself from pushing code you haven't reviewed, but the only way that can happen is if you use an agent locally that also make commits, and you aren't aware of it? I'm not sure how you'd end up in that situation, unless you have LLMs running autonomously on your computer that you don't have actual runtime insights into? Which seems like it'd be a way bigger problem than "code I didn't reviewed was pushed".
  - raphinou 7mo ago
    The agents run in a container and have an other git identity configured. It happens that agents commit code and I don't want to push it accidentally from outside the container, which is where I work.
singpolyma3 7mo ago
Not just review but how you worked with the AI. If you gave it four words and waited and hour maybe you're not the author. But that's not how these tools are best used anyway.

palmotea 7mo ago

> It's unethical (if not outright fraudulent) to publish LLM work as if it were your own. I disagree on that. It's really a gray area. If it's some lazy vibecoded shit, I think what you say totally applies. If the human did the thinking, gave the agent detailed instructions, and/or carefully reviewed the output, then I don't think it's so clear cut. And full disclosure, I'm reacting more to copilot here, which lists itself as the author and you as the co-author. I'm not giving credit to the machine, like I'm some appendage to it (which is totally what the powers-that-be want me to become). > Claude setting itself as coauthor is a good way to address this problem, and it doing so by default is a very good thing. I do agree that's a sensible default.

mannanj 7mo ago
Telling someone you did something that you actually didn't do isn't a gray area, it's a lie. Using AI tools to code and then hiding that is unethical imo.
- BeetleB 7mo ago
  > Telling someone you did something that you actually didn't do isn't a gray area, it's a lie. Pre-LLMs, various helper tools (including LSPs), would make code changes to improve the quality of the code - from simple things like adding a const specifier to a function, to changing the actual function being called. No one insisted that the commit shouldn't have the human's name on it.
  - isjciwjdieh 7mo ago
    These are not anywhere near equivalent. The fact that you think they are is laughable.
  - mannanj 7mo ago
    I guess that was a lie, too. Though it was more tolerated and accepted per our norms as a society. Though I do see the gray area now too. The gray area is in the gap of "how much" help is given. Does a tool that does most of the coding, thinking and implementation for you still count as your work if you gave it the goal, guidance and architecture? Yes. And what I want to know as the peer of the person using such a tool, call it AI, is to what degree it did the work and how much of it you validated. Since the other tools pre-AI were more validated by the humans using them, I as the peer know the outputs pass a basic level of quality. I know the human was mostly involved in their production and creation. AI breaks this assumption and now many humans are producing outputs that require an unpredictable level of review by peers - as this is a big change in the norms of our society, I think its OK to call it out as a requirement to label output as AI-assisted/generated and/or to specify how much and how AI was involved and call it unethical if not done so. (I think it's not necessary or helpful to call out the use of the pre-AI era tools as unethical or a lie, even though they are too).

stronglikedan 7mo ago

Should Word set itself as my coauthor when it autocompletes some sentences for me? If I use Claude/Word to write something, then I am the only author, since Claude/Word is not a person, and Claude/Word did nothing without my direction. It's not unethical to not disclose the tools I use to produce my work. They're just tools, smdh.

spacechild1 7mo ago
With Word autocomplete you're still actively writing your text. Wouldn't it be more fair to compare this with autocompletion in IDEs? IANAL so I appreciate any legal experts to correct me here. In my understanding, there have been court decisions that LLM output itself is not copyrightable. You can only claim authorship (and therefore copyright) if you have significantly transformed the output. If you are truely vibing coding to the point where you don't even look at the generated code, how exactly are you transforming the LLM output? Also, what if the LLM reproduces existing copyrighted code? There has been a court decision last year in Germany that says that OpenAI violates German copyright law because ChatGPT may recreate existing song lyrics (that are licensed by GEMA) or create very similar variations.