“Responsible use of AI”? Is that a joke? There is no such a thing as responsible use of AI. Responsible people would refuse to use AI.
But anyway, Linux is already AI. Sticking to any one of those BSDs is the only way out.
NetBSD explicitly don’t allow AI code
You CAN use AI responsibly, it’s just not worth doing, most of the time. It would cost more than just not using it in the first place.
At first I was afraid that they would allow for an irresponsible use. But no, they explicitly say “responsible”, so that danger is no more. I’m very much relieved.
Also they explicitly mention that humans will remain accountable. Not Nature, or Fate, or the gods; mark that. Good thinking there!
Problems solved.
humans will remain accountable
I see this a lot in clanker apologia, but it’s never clear what “accountable” actually entails. Unless it’s something of the order of a first-offense permanent ban from the project then it’s not going to dissuade anyone from being lazy meat proxies.
That’s very Linus of them:
The mass-extinction causing orphan-crushing torment nexus is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it’s clearly a useful one.
There are other questions around it, like if we should be complicit in killing billions of people, and making more than 50% of genera go extinct, via its CO2e releases and water use, but “is it useful” is no longer one of those questions.
The Debian project has been and will continue to be about the technology.
Sure, the people who use it is important and often a very motivating part of the project, but in the end that’s a side benefit, not the point of the project.
In the Debian community we do open source because it results in better technology, not because of ethical reasons.
And so we make decisions primarily based on technical merit. Not fear of causing a mass extinction.
/s
The mass-extinction causing orphan-crushing torment nexus is a tool, just like other tools we use.
Well, obviously! Microsoft is using this tool too, and as we can all observe, that’s making their competing OS much better and much more desirable.
IMHO: They talk about having it go through the exact same due diligence as normal contribs and a human has to be responsible. I think it’s an acceptable compromise.
A human cannot be responsible for AI written code.
Even if you personally vet every single line, you are still simply code reviewing an AI before you pass it to someone else.
A human did not write nor understand it, and thus cannot be responsible for it and thus should never submit it.
Not to mention the code review itself becomes a very tedious process: sifting through hundreds of lines of AI garbage and token expiry. It’s downright rude to expect a volunteer to check hundreds of lines of garbage you didnt even bother writing.
Signed, disgruntled software engineer who refuses to use my jobs “optional” ai feature
I’d expect this from Ubuntu but I was hoping for better from Debian… You know… Being as their whole shtick is stability.
Deeply disappointing. I was hoping it would be a refuge from AI infection.
This is disappointing… It would have been good to have at least one major distro that was AI free
This is a very hard decision to reverse out of if it turns out to be a problem in a few years
It would have been good to have at least one major distro that was AI free
Then you’d need to use one without the Linux kernel
Yes… That was also disappointing :(
The good news is that it could roll back to the current stable Trixie at any point
Contributors are expected to understand, review, test, and, where appropriate, modify AI-assisted output before incorporating it into Debian. Blindly accepting or uploading AI-generated material without appropriate human review is inconsistent with Debian’s established development practices. We [encourage] our contributors to disclose whether a contribution was made with AI [assistance], but do not require them to do so.
Oh it definitely should be disclosed
That last bit is a bad idea
Not at all, because it’s impossible to know for sure if committed code had some form of AI generated parts, AI assisted review, prototyping, etc.
By making it mandatory you can potentially alienate good developers who may feel their work ethics would be scrutinized negatively (like in these comments).
If you’re happy to use AI tools to develop, why would you not be happy to declare your use of those tools?
“Happy” is an odd choice of words here.
An LLM is just a tool. Some iterations have some value in some circumstances. In those cases it’s fine. But look around at the comments here and you’ll see many people basically accusing Debian of selling out. If a dev sees that reaction then they may not want to disclose their own use of LLMs.
Why would you not want to disclose though? Is it because of shame? Because you are unable to defend your choice? If it’s “just a tool”, is that not enough to defend your choice?
To be clear: the alternative policy we’re talking about isn’t “LLMs are bad, don’t use them”, it’s “Let us know when you are using LLMs”
I agree. Disclosure of A.I. use should be mandatory.
My main concern with A.I. use is its ability to hide incompetence. If a new agent introduces code that was entirely written by illegal-software that violates copyright law–A.I.–then that should be made clear, even if competent-programmers review the new inclusion and approve of it. Otherwise people are left with the impression that this new agent is a competent programmer. A.I. use–undisclosed–creates false reputations.
The disclosure being encouraged and not mandatory is purely to protect the egos of programmers currently utilizing A.I. products.
However I do respect their decision and I maintain projects should be self governing.
I do respect their decision and I maintain projects should be self governing.
Me too, but I also think that governance isn’t as simple as “we get to decide what we do”, it also interacts with how well the decision-makers understand their domain and their broader it sits in, both of which are potentially reduced as a consequence of relying on AI.
Also there is the possibility of AI tools dominating workflows and then getting ripped away (either as the corporates raise costs, or the bubble bursts and they collapse), leaving a project overwhelmed with a unmanageably large array of weaknesses. In that scenario self-governance starts to become irrelevant.
Alright, what are the alternatives folks?
Gentoo? Gentoo!
(But I’ll keep watch to see of they don’t revert course because “the models are now too powerful”, since it is a policy from 2024)
The policy
Gentoo Council has voted on 2024-04-14 on the following policy:
It is expressly forbidden to contribute to Gentoo any content that has been created with the assistance of Natural Language Processing artificial intelligence tools. This motion can be revisited, should a case be made for such a tool that does not pose copyright, ethical and quality concerns.
This policy affects Gentoo contributions and the official Gentoo projects. It does not prohibit adding packages for AI-related software or software that is being developed with the help of such tools upstream.
I genuinely wonder how they’re going to square this policy with LLM code in the kernel.
Personally, I’m guessing that all distros will eventually bend and allow LLM code.
I think this bit makes it clear that shipping LLM code from the kernel that wasn’t contributed by Gentoo is fine:
This policy affects Gentoo contributions and the official Gentoo projects. It does not prohibit adding packages for AI-related software or software that is being developed with the help of such tools upstream.
When an LLM agent reports a huge security bug and provides the solution and the only solution is explicitly exactly what it wrote.
Checkmate!
If this AI distro crap keeps going, I’m going back to using my Android (Pixel 10a and GrapheneOS) phone for everything. Not the best option but better than using a vibe-coded distro.
All I need is a monitor and wall mount for the monitor. Connect a hub and charger (phone does pass-through charging), a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Some workflow will have to change, Cryptpad instead of LibreOffice for example.
If you think Gemini isn’t deep in android development now, you’re mistaken.
Maybe you’re ok if you stay on 13 or maybe 14.
No Gemini in GrapheneOS.
Graphene isn’t using Gemini, nor including the Gemini app in user space.
But they’re still ingesting AOSP from Google’s source drops and Google is 100% using Gemini to make that.
Same as Debian is going to allow devs to use LLMs to develop for Debian.
People out there who think they can avoid AI this way are really just delusional. Its everywhere at this point.
If its not in the software you are using, the software that runs the software has it. Or the software that runs the software that runs the software. Its inescapable.
You’re on the internet? Millions of lines of AI code are probably involved in you seeing this message across the entire infrastructure needed to allow this.
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I will wait to see if it actually comes at the detriment of the program.
Rip Debian
