Comment on As Ubuntu embraces AI, Debian discusses banning all AI-generated code
tangeli@piefed.social 1 day agoEven if AI generated code can’t be detected reliably, it is good to have a clear policy to guide projects and contributors. At least those contributors acting in good faith and honestly will do the right thing, and projects will have a basis for rejecting contributions from people that are found to willfully or negligently violate the policy. Blocking all malicious actors will be an ongoing effort, whatever the policy.
radioactivefunguy@piefed.ca 1 day ago
For me, if a PR looks good, and I can reach out to the contributor and they can competently discuss their work, then its fine with me if they used AI to code it.
I think a sensible policy would be: use whatever tools you like to contribute, but own the contribution. Obvious slop code is rejected.
tangeli@piefed.social 1 day ago
I agree as far as responding to questions and issues that arise from the contribution but my understanding is that from a legal, copyright perspective, if AI generated the code then the contributor can’t own the copyright, nor assign it. So my preference would be: no AI generated code. Other use of AI tools (e.g. finding vulnerabilities) might be OK but there are still the environmental and ethical issues to be concerned with, so I remain ambivalent. It will be interesting to see the decision of the Debian community.