AI code bans may be impossible to enforce in the first place
I hate this attitude that if a rule or standard can’t be enforced perfectly, we shouldn’t strive for it. We can’t (reasonably) run an OS free of proprietary software, does that mean the free software movement should just give up?
LLM code can cause deaths (i.e. in hospital software), or otherwise great human or material loses (i.e., bank software or a shelter’s software), or even cultural loses (it actually does them right now, but you can also think about i.e. a museum software).
I think one way is to make people realize that there is a concept in copyright called Threshold of Originality, meaning that because machine generated output in itself is not creative work, it’s not copyrightable. You can do literally anything with it, the licenses attached don’t matter. The GPL is not enforceable and no proprietary EULA is enforceable.
The reason is that it’s based in copyright law but uses it for the community instead of the individual. Without copyright, copyleft has no power.
I have many problems with copyright as it’s currently implemented, but with copyleft it usefully creates a social contract: if you want to be involved for the benefits, you must also uphold the rule of contributing back.
I think of it like age verification. Slipperly slope to a proprietary kernel-level “security compliance module” on all devices, aka the end of general computation.
This isn’t a case where something can’t be enforced perfectly, it is a case of something that can’t be enforced at all going into the future. Every tool that can reliably detect LLM code is at the same time the tool used for adversarial training, making the generated code look more and more human. We are already at the point where for plain english the false positives and false negatives go through the roof, making these tools very unreliable and when applied automatically a liability. Code is a lot more formalized, with a lot less personal variance (spelling, vocabulary and grammar are basically fixed - only the used logic and how it is implemented is variable), making detection harder by default than in natural languages.
If LLM code can’t be detected anymore by automated means - and that state of things is approaching fast - then any policy about allowing or restricting LLM code is not worth the paper you would use to print it out. But that’s not so much of a problem. The more important policy to set, that can also be enforced, is that everyone submitting code has to take personal responsibility regarding the quality of the submission. Delivering bad code - when not happening while training to become a better coder and looking for feedback - has to lead to consequences based on the seriousness of the case and if it’s a repeat offender. Anyone using an LLM to spit out bullshit LQ code will run into that kind of rule very fast.
I’m very critical of AI, but complete bans on AI use are, at the moment, pretty much unenforcable. Not hard to enforce, not impossible to enforce 100%, but completely impossible to enforce in general. There currently is no reliable way to verify if and how much someone used AI, except maybe if you monitor people’s systems (and even with a totalitarian surveilence system, coders will probably be able to bypass it).
Obviously, if someone who has no clue about coding uses it to write the entire code, you notice. But that’s simply not how most coders use AI…
Edit: And additionally, mandating disclosure of AI can make sense, but it can also create the false assumption that codeers/code without any disclosure are verified to not use AI when coding when it simply cannot be verified. It depends entirely on the coder being honest and transperant about their use of AI. And given the passionate pushback, coders are definitely incentiviced to not disclose AI use.
Provenance has never been something you can guarantee with code in an open contribution model (which is not the only way of governing an open source project). For all you know the code could be copy and pasted from a proprietary codebase, or be the product of third party who’s work is being plagiarised by the submitter. A software project is ultimately a community and is build on trust and faith that people are acting in good faith. The kind of person who would deliberately (and gleefully as I’ve seen in some social media posts) go into a community and violate its stated values and standards, no matter how arbitrary and illegitimate they feel those are, has bigger character flaws to worry about than their reliance on stochastic parrots to write code.
‘No AI’ rules are ultimately about fostering certain community values and norms than guaranteeing no LLM code makes it in.
Just want to let you know from my canoebooted laptop that I run a 100% “free as in freedom” OS (trisquel GNU/Linux). Also you have convinced me about striving for a goal instead of doing it perfectly, which is not possible. Well said.
I hate this attitude that if a rule or standard can’t be enforced perfectly, we shouldn’t strive for it.
This is the entire basis for the War on (some) Drugs. Guess what? Drugs won.
Power is nothing without enforceability, and purposely implementing rules or laws that can’t be enforceable is a form of malice and discrimination through selective enforcement.
In terms of murder, not every person is caught. But, enough of them are to deter the crime.
In terms of “no AI” enforcement, it’s not even a matter of perfection. It’s not possible to enforce except for the dumbest attempts, especially without also using AI to detect it. And if that enforcement comes about, then the evasion starts, and it’s hidden even further.
As another person stated in another comment, that’s a false equivalence fallacy, but not only that, it’s a false dilemma fallacy, and a strawman fallacy.
It’s like trying to prove an author didn’t use a ghostwriter. You might be able to find some clues, but the smaller the sample and the more cleanup the author did, the less chance there is to detect it.
Now what if they’re using AI for debugging? Code from the AI may not even make it into the project, but that doesn’t mean AI wasn’t used. So how do you enforce a “no AI” policy in that scenario?
If there’s no practical way to enforce a rule or tell if it has been broken, it’s a pointless rule. Better programmers than me have settled on the policy of “If you track in shit on your shoes, you will be the one cleaning it up, and may well be told to not come back if you do.” Make people responsible for the code they submit, and if they can’t do it right, however they do it, don’t merge their code and kick them out.
I hate this attitude that if a rule or standard can’t be enforced perfectly, we shouldn’t strive for it. We can’t (reasonably) run an OS free of proprietary software, does that mean the free software movement should just give up?
“People are going to murder anyway, so why even make murder illegal?”
You are correct, you should make rules even understanding that they will be broken by some.
You can enforce consequences for murder. You can investigate and differentiate a murder from an accidental death. Don’t be disingenuous.
A death is a death.
I can quote from memory a case in my country, in the 80’s, where a man assaulted a couple, killed the woman and was about to kill the man.
The killer got tackled and beat to death by the widower. The sole survivor was sent to trial for murder regardless being under mortal peril.
Got acquited on the appeal. First instance deemed it an excessive act, regardless self defence.
Yes, debugging with an LLM is absolutely as bad as murder. Probably worse! \s
Not even remotely what I suggested.
They can only make fallacies to defend themselves.
LLM code can cause deaths (i.e. in hospital software), or otherwise great human or material loses (i.e., bank software or a shelter’s software), or even cultural loses (it actually does them right now, but you can also think about i.e. a museum software).
I think one way is to make people realize that there is a concept in copyright called Threshold of Originality, meaning that because machine generated output in itself is not creative work, it’s not copyrightable. You can do literally anything with it, the licenses attached don’t matter. The GPL is not enforceable and no proprietary EULA is enforceable.
The entire point of GPL is to forcefully extract copyright out of the code in the first place.
No? The point of the GPL is to leverage such a copyright.
It’s called “copyleft” for a reason.
The reason is that it’s based in copyright law but uses it for the community instead of the individual. Without copyright, copyleft has no power.
I have many problems with copyright as it’s currently implemented, but with copyleft it usefully creates a social contract: if you want to be involved for the benefits, you must also uphold the rule of contributing back.
“Murder bans may be impossible to enforce in the first place”
But they aren’t impossible to enforce and you know that.
That’s… the joke. The original proposition was that AI code bans can’t be enforced, a thought which I was leading ad absurdum.
I think of it like age verification. Slipperly slope to a proprietary kernel-level “security compliance module” on all devices, aka the end of general computation.
This isn’t a case where something can’t be enforced perfectly, it is a case of something that can’t be enforced at all going into the future. Every tool that can reliably detect LLM code is at the same time the tool used for adversarial training, making the generated code look more and more human. We are already at the point where for plain english the false positives and false negatives go through the roof, making these tools very unreliable and when applied automatically a liability. Code is a lot more formalized, with a lot less personal variance (spelling, vocabulary and grammar are basically fixed - only the used logic and how it is implemented is variable), making detection harder by default than in natural languages.
If LLM code can’t be detected anymore by automated means - and that state of things is approaching fast - then any policy about allowing or restricting LLM code is not worth the paper you would use to print it out. But that’s not so much of a problem. The more important policy to set, that can also be enforced, is that everyone submitting code has to take personal responsibility regarding the quality of the submission. Delivering bad code - when not happening while training to become a better coder and looking for feedback - has to lead to consequences based on the seriousness of the case and if it’s a repeat offender. Anyone using an LLM to spit out bullshit LQ code will run into that kind of rule very fast.
Exactly. There are too many knee jerk responses to this position. Just banning LLM generated code is a useless gesture.
Changing the way merges and reviews are handled, as well as responsibility for them, is the actual way to address this.
I’m very critical of AI, but complete bans on AI use are, at the moment, pretty much unenforcable. Not hard to enforce, not impossible to enforce 100%, but completely impossible to enforce in general. There currently is no reliable way to verify if and how much someone used AI, except maybe if you monitor people’s systems (and even with a totalitarian surveilence system, coders will probably be able to bypass it).
Obviously, if someone who has no clue about coding uses it to write the entire code, you notice. But that’s simply not how most coders use AI…
Edit: And additionally, mandating disclosure of AI can make sense, but it can also create the false assumption that codeers/code without any disclosure are verified to not use AI when coding when it simply cannot be verified. It depends entirely on the coder being honest and transperant about their use of AI. And given the passionate pushback, coders are definitely incentiviced to not disclose AI use.
So how would one enforce this?
It is not that it is very difficult, it is impossible.
“it’s impossible to ensure that no one pisses in the pool, therefore we’re allowing pissing into the pool now”
“we can’t 100% enforce that studenst don’t cheat on exams, so it’s not worth to take a stand against cheating”
Provenance has never been something you can guarantee with code in an open contribution model (which is not the only way of governing an open source project). For all you know the code could be copy and pasted from a proprietary codebase, or be the product of third party who’s work is being plagiarised by the submitter. A software project is ultimately a community and is build on trust and faith that people are acting in good faith. The kind of person who would deliberately (and gleefully as I’ve seen in some social media posts) go into a community and violate its stated values and standards, no matter how arbitrary and illegitimate they feel those are, has bigger character flaws to worry about than their reliance on stochastic parrots to write code.
‘No AI’ rules are ultimately about fostering certain community values and norms than guaranteeing no LLM code makes it in.
Just want to let you know from my canoebooted laptop that I run a 100% “free as in freedom” OS (trisquel GNU/Linux). Also you have convinced me about striving for a goal instead of doing it perfectly, which is not possible. Well said.
This is the entire basis for the War on (some) Drugs. Guess what? Drugs won.
Power is nothing without enforceability, and purposely implementing rules or laws that can’t be enforceable is a form of malice and discrimination through selective enforcement.
People are begging to regulate “AI” when it doesn’t even exist and there’s not even an objective definition.
Absolute recipe for failure or worse.
I agree, we should absolutely toss out all those laws against murder because they can’t be enforced perfectly or equitably.
In terms of murder, not every person is caught. But, enough of them are to deter the crime.
In terms of “no AI” enforcement, it’s not even a matter of perfection. It’s not possible to enforce except for the dumbest attempts, especially without also using AI to detect it. And if that enforcement comes about, then the evasion starts, and it’s hidden even further.
AI code ban makes as much sense as code written in IDE ban. That’s why it is impossible to enforce. It makes no sense.
Me when I’m a logical fallacy
You’re getting a lot of down votes not for being wrong, but for being right.
No, he gets them for being wrong.
As another person stated in another comment, that’s a false equivalence fallacy, but not only that, it’s a false dilemma fallacy, and a strawman fallacy.
It’s like trying to prove an author didn’t use a ghostwriter. You might be able to find some clues, but the smaller the sample and the more cleanup the author did, the less chance there is to detect it.
Now what if they’re using AI for debugging? Code from the AI may not even make it into the project, but that doesn’t mean AI wasn’t used. So how do you enforce a “no AI” policy in that scenario?
If there’s no practical way to enforce a rule or tell if it has been broken, it’s a pointless rule. Better programmers than me have settled on the policy of “If you track in shit on your shoes, you will be the one cleaning it up, and may well be told to not come back if you do.” Make people responsible for the code they submit, and if they can’t do it right, however they do it, don’t merge their code and kick them out.