Debian permitting use of genAI:
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@dequbed Thank you!
I have not used Gentoo in 25 years
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@dequbed Thank you!
I have not used Gentoo in 25 years
@neil Well then, it has certainly changed since then; most of it for the better
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I think that I see that in the same way as I see other questions of provenance.
For instance, if I promise that I have the permission to contribute a patch, but I do not, that might be hard to detect, but is nevertheless important.
@neil I agree with that framing.
The provenance thing provokes the same question for me about where the line is though.
A hidden actor that writes the code directly that I claim? Probably against the policy.
Someone/thing that coaches me through writing the code? Someone who writes a blog/book that inspires me to create the code? Less clear.
What about a machine that takes the voice output of someone unable to type and turns that into code? Is that acceptable?
I don't think "no LLMs / no AI" is anything like precise enough to be useful. It's a good statement of principle, but a wholly inneffective policy imo. I have no good answer or suggestion though
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@neil Well then, it has certainly changed since then; most of it for the better
The same is true of me
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@neil I agree with that framing.
The provenance thing provokes the same question for me about where the line is though.
A hidden actor that writes the code directly that I claim? Probably against the policy.
Someone/thing that coaches me through writing the code? Someone who writes a blog/book that inspires me to create the code? Less clear.
What about a machine that takes the voice output of someone unable to type and turns that into code? Is that acceptable?
I don't think "no LLMs / no AI" is anything like precise enough to be useful. It's a good statement of principle, but a wholly inneffective policy imo. I have no good answer or suggestion though
I don't think that most of these are new issues, though - and some seem (to me, anyway) somewhat contrived/forced in the context of the issue in discussion (speech to text in particular).
That said, yes, clarity is welcome.
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I don't think that most of these are new issues, though - and some seem (to me, anyway) somewhat contrived/forced in the context of the issue in discussion (speech to text in particular).
That said, yes, clarity is welcome.
@neil take your point on contrived. My experience is that the credibility of these things live and die with the edge cases. Today's hypothetical is tomorrow's case study etc. etc.
We will discover and figure this out over time, I'm sure of it!
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@neil also as a developer, it might be hypocritical to say absolutely no to AI.
There are some use cases that are compelling such as the way it can explain code to me or how can assist me with languages that I know but I am not good at yet for example rust.
For these use cases I would want to use some AI. And I imagine this is true of other developers. Even Debian developers. And that would be responsible use AI, right? This would not be creating slop necessarily.
I can understand that they also some cases where LLMs either by design, or due to insufficient oversight introduce security vulnerabilities into software and these I am concerned about.
So, umm... How to get the balance right? An outright ban for me is too much. But if it is allowed in limited and restricted circumstances only, wouldn't you say yes to that?
@freshstart @neil The "right balance" for #NoAI is no AI. Nothing hypocritical in that if you're not using AI.
You finding it helpful doesn't make the environmental impacts disappear, or make money appear in the pockets of all the people whose IP is being stolen, or even ensure that it's not teaching you to write bad code.
Every AI user finds a way to justify it to themself, but there's nothing responsible about your use case. You're the baddie, here - step away from the edge.
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@neil I am not sure if this is worth the effort. In a few years all distros/maintainers will permit using genAI. Perhaps there will be "vinyl" distributions without
@simondueckert @neil Just like how all software is on the blockchain now, and I'm buying my groceries with NFTs.
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Debian permitting use of genAI:
1) I am surprised. Perhaps I am naive, but I was of the impression that Debian would be one of the last distros that would want this.
2) I agree that the legal position varies around the world, and is subject to change. I don't know how easy it would be to remove genAI code if the risk profile changed.
3) I am surprised how little weight is given (by anyone, not just Debian devs) to the environmental harm of genAI. Perhaps that is justified as being too remote to be of direct concern.
4) As a long term Debian user impacted by this decision, I need to make a decision. Not doing anything is a decision in itself, even if a temporary decision. Moving from Debian would be many days of work, but that doesn't mean doing so is the wrong decision for me. Aargh.
@neil it’s got me eyeing up BSDs of all things.
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@neil also as a developer, it might be hypocritical to say absolutely no to AI.
There are some use cases that are compelling such as the way it can explain code to me or how can assist me with languages that I know but I am not good at yet for example rust.
For these use cases I would want to use some AI. And I imagine this is true of other developers. Even Debian developers. And that would be responsible use AI, right? This would not be creating slop necessarily.
I can understand that they also some cases where LLMs either by design, or due to insufficient oversight introduce security vulnerabilities into software and these I am concerned about.
So, umm... How to get the balance right? An outright ban for me is too much. But if it is allowed in limited and restricted circumstances only, wouldn't you say yes to that?
@freshstart @neil There's something missing from this reasoning. Consider:
as a developer, it might be hypocritical to say absolutely no to slavery.
There are some use cases that are compelling such as the way slaves can explain code to me or how they can assist me with languages that I know but I am not good at yet for example rust.
For these use cases I would want to use some slaves. And I imagine this is true of other developers. Even Debian developers. And that would be responsible use of slavery, right? This would not be creating slop necessarily.
I can understand that they also some cases where slaves either by design, or due to insufficient oversight introduce security vulnerabilities into software and these I am concerned about.
So, umm... How to get the balance right? An outright ban for me is too much. But if slavery is allowed in limited and restricted circumstances only, wouldn't you say yes to that?
To be clear, I'm not saying AI is slavery. I am saying "this thing benefits me personally" is not an ethical argument and is missing a big part of the picture.
(Or "I understand drugs can be bad, but I really like cocaine, so an outright ban is too much for me," etc.)
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> And that would be responsible use AI, right?
What criteria are you using for this assessment? That would seem to be important here, as to whether your conclusion is really just reinforcing your choice to use genAI because you would find it helpful to do so, or if it is a considered, objective stance.
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@neil also as a developer, it might be hypocritical to say absolutely no to AI.
There are some use cases that are compelling such as the way it can explain code to me or how can assist me with languages that I know but I am not good at yet for example rust.
For these use cases I would want to use some AI. And I imagine this is true of other developers. Even Debian developers. And that would be responsible use AI, right? This would not be creating slop necessarily.
I can understand that they also some cases where LLMs either by design, or due to insufficient oversight introduce security vulnerabilities into software and these I am concerned about.
So, umm... How to get the balance right? An outright ban for me is too much. But if it is allowed in limited and restricted circumstances only, wouldn't you say yes to that?
@freshstart Why would
it be ‘hypocritical’ as a developer? Also as a developer, I don’t find it at all unreasonable to reject all those uses. (Personally I either find them unreliable, or at best not useful enough to justify the harms.)So it seems like it’s about personal ethics and tradeoffs rather than any objective evaluation (for both of us).
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@tschenkel A cabin in the woods, at this rate.
@neil @tschenkel worked for Joey Hess!
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@neil also, sadly, the vast majority of the code in a debian distro is not written by debian developers, and the way things are going _that_ is most likely to have been touched by the magic eight ball - including the kernel. so.
@fishidwardrobe @neil "responsible AI" is "clean coal" for programming, it is at best jawdroppingly naive to take this as anything other than a green light for the worst practices by the worst people
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@neil appreciate your thoughtfulness on this, even if I don't necessarily entirely share your values.
My issue with this whole thing comes down to detectability and trust. If I point at a git commit, authored by me, and I pinky swear I didn't use an LLM to write, design, or coach me through any part of it, is that sufficient to meet a project's "no AI" policy?
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@neil also as a developer, it might be hypocritical to say absolutely no to AI.
There are some use cases that are compelling such as the way it can explain code to me or how can assist me with languages that I know but I am not good at yet for example rust.
For these use cases I would want to use some AI. And I imagine this is true of other developers. Even Debian developers. And that would be responsible use AI, right? This would not be creating slop necessarily.
I can understand that they also some cases where LLMs either by design, or due to insufficient oversight introduce security vulnerabilities into software and these I am concerned about.
So, umm... How to get the balance right? An outright ban for me is too much. But if it is allowed in limited and restricted circumstances only, wouldn't you say yes to that?
@freshstart @neil you're reminding me of the Xfce guy who enumerated every objection to AI coding then said "but i like it, so it's fine"
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@feff Yes, and perhaps I should have been "on this" sooner.
I could do nothing, adopt a watching brief, and pretend that that makes me neutral on the topic.
And doing nothing is definitely superficially attractive, because the doing something meaningful is a huge amount of work.
I'm pretty sure that even our doorbell runs Linux.
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Debian permitting use of genAI:
1) I am surprised. Perhaps I am naive, but I was of the impression that Debian would be one of the last distros that would want this.
2) I agree that the legal position varies around the world, and is subject to change. I don't know how easy it would be to remove genAI code if the risk profile changed.
3) I am surprised how little weight is given (by anyone, not just Debian devs) to the environmental harm of genAI. Perhaps that is justified as being too remote to be of direct concern.
4) As a long term Debian user impacted by this decision, I need to make a decision. Not doing anything is a decision in itself, even if a temporary decision. Moving from Debian would be many days of work, but that doesn't mean doing so is the wrong decision for me. Aargh.
@neil i am so tired
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@neil thanks Neil for your thoughts.
So Debian in the past has done some possibly questionable decisions like systemd.
I am aware of the environmental harm that AI is doing. On the other hand I can imagine a future where we all run a low resource local AI on better hardware and where there isn't so much money being pumped into these data centers anymore. However nobody knows the future and the sooner these firms go bankrupt, the sooner that there will be some alignment between environmental cost and financial cost.
@freshstart @neil if appealing to a future hypothetical version that isn't shit is your best argument, i have to wonder why you're pushing this line so hard
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@simondueckert @neil Just like how all software is on the blockchain now, and I'm buying my groceries with NFTs.
@PentUp @simondueckert @neil this guy posts advocating "open source" alternatives to claude code, so
