Cited from the article:
[…] the Void Linux project does have a contributing policy over AI usage that reads:
"In this section, “AI” refers to generative artificial intelligence tools, including Large Language Models and similar technologies.
All contributions are expected to be made by humans. AI tools may be used for research and learning, but all content in contributions must originate from and be understood by the contributor. This includes code, documentation, issues, security reports, pull request descriptions, and comments in all Void Linux community spaces.
ALL usage of AI tools MUST be disclosed.
Do not bring AI review tools into pull requests.
Usage of AI-powered human-language translation tools is acceptable to facilitate contributions across language barriers."
- The maintainer, probably
FOSS isn’t entirely immune to AI mania (or rather, LLM mania, because no ‘intelligence’ is inside).
I think LLMs can tentatively be used for some useful things, like checking for security bugs in new kernel code. But this does not answer the difficult question whether it should be used, because there are many important points in contra. Apart from massive pollution of the biosphere, it causes also a kind of pollution of collective knowledge and understanding. Which is a very important aspect of FOSS, and one of the things which bring us together.
For example, as Joey Hess wrote, if a distribution’s package build code is done by LLMs, it is likely to become harder to understand over time. This is probably not the kind of technical debt which a distribution with limited resources wants to have. And you see, the decisions of individuals affect other people too, which is why we have rules.
👏
Just wanted to chime in an say I appreciate your more balanced and or nuanced take on this topic.
I see a lot of hate for AI and for good reason, but it does have its use cases.
Unfortunately, like NFTs when they became popular for scams or whatever the fuck people started doing with them, it quickly became used for making garbage, scamming, and being shoved into everything companies thought it could be.
And the scale at which AI is harming our planet is too great a cost for what it does right now or even if it was amazing at what it did. Theres a lot of issues with it.
Also, polarization is another danger, it can seriously hurt communities, and also can be used against them. So, PLEASE be careful about polarization and trolling, as trolls like to play on people’s emotions like a fiddle.
(Sadly, I saw that with some dance communities during COVID, which went into very personal and hurtful fights about adherence to social distancing rules, which had become a topic of information warfare.) “AI” is a polarizing topic, too, and for the FOSS community much more dangerous than the old humorous dispute whether Emacs or vim is better. We need to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis here, or possibly even avoid an ill-advised journey between them.