KritVutGu · HackerTrans

It is precisely the same existential threat, to code and to software developers, in my eyes. I take the exact same pride in my code (which I want to be free software, BTW) as artists do in their art. Writing code is a form of self-expression and self-realization for me, and as such, it is completely personal, between myself, and those (humans) who read my code.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> Normalize draft PRs and sharing big messes of code you're not quite sure about but want to start a conversation about. Normalize admitting that you don't fully understand the code you've written / are tasked with reviewing and that this is perfectly fine and doesn't reflect poorly on you at all, in fact it reflects humility and a collaborative spirit.

Such behaviors can only be normalized in a classroom / ramp-up / mentorship-like setting. Which is very valid, BUT:

- Your reviewers are always overloaded, so they need some official mandate / approval to mentor newcomers. This is super important, and should be done everywhere.

- Even with the above in place: because you're being mentored with great attention to detail, you owe it to your reviewer not to drown them in AI slop. You must honor them by writing every single line that you ask them to spend their attention on yourself. Ultimately, their educative efforts are invested IN YOU, not (only) in the code that may finally be merged. I absolutely refuse to review or otherwise correct AI slop, while at the same time I'm 100% committed to transfer whatever knowledge I may have to another human.

Fuck AI.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> The existence of AI slop fundamentally breaks these assumptions. That is why we need enforced social norms around disclosure.

Exactly! The code used double as "proof of work". Well-formed language used to double as "proof of thinking". And that's what AI breaks: it speaks, but doesn't think. And my core point is that language that does not originate from well-reasoned human effort (i.e., from either writing the language directly, or from writing such code manually that generates the language deterministically, and for known reasons/intents), does not deserve human attention. Even if the "observable behavior" of such language (when executed as code) looks "alright".

And because I further think that no code should be accepted without human review (which excludes both not reviewing AI-generated code at all and having some other AI review the AI-generated code), I conclude that AI-generated code can never be accepted.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> Otherwise, what’s the harm in saying AI guides you to the solution if you can attest to it being a good solution?

For one: it threatens to make an entire generation of programmers lazy and stupid. They stop exercising their creative muscle. Writing and reviewing are different activities; both should be done continuously.

This is perfectly observable with a foreign language. If you stop actively using a foreign language after learning it really well, your ability to speak it fades pretty quickly, while your ability to understand it fades too, but less quickly.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> the pride in work thing is just not high on the list of incentives

Thanks for putting it so well.

That is what hurts. A lot. Taking pride out of work, especially creative work, makes the world a worse place; it makes life less worth living.

> inventing pale shadows of things

Yes.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

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KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> AI is writing a lot of the unit tests

Are you kidding?

- For ages now, people have used "broad test coverage" and "CI" as excuses for superficial reviews, as excuses for negligent coding and verification.

- And now people foist even writing the test suite off on AI.

Don't you see that this way you have no reasoned examination of the code?

> ... and the code, but it’s entirely by my architectural design.

This is fucking bullshit. The devil is in the details, always. The most care and the closest supervision must be precisely where the rubber meets the road. I wouldn't want to drive a car that you "architecturally designed", and a statistical language model manufactured.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> Do I also have to disclose using tab completion? My IDE uses machine learning for completion suggestions.

Yes, you have to disclose it.

> Do I need to disclose that I wrote a script to generate some annoying boilerplate?

You absolutely need to disclose it.

> Or that my IDE automatically templates for loops?

That's probably worth disclosing too.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

Good point. That's the point exactly. Don't use AI for writing your patch. At all.

Why are you surprised? Do companies want to hire "honest" people whose CVs were written by some LLM?

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

> As a project maintainer, you shouldn't make rules unenforceable rules

Total bullshit. It's totally fine to declare intent.

You are already incapable of verifying / enforcing that a contributor is legally permitted to submit a piece of code as their own creation (Signed-off-by), and do so under the project's license. You won't embark on looking for prior art, for the "actual origin" of the code, whatever. You just make them promise, and then take their word for it.

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

You are absolutely right. AI is just a tool to DDoS maintainers.

Any contributor who was shown to post provably untested patches used to lose credibility. And now we're talking about accommodating people who don't even understand how the patch is supposed to work?

KritVutGu

11 mesi fadiscuss

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