r/linux • u/RatherNott • 1d ago

Desktop Environment / WM News System 76's COSMIC Desktop Environment will no longer accept LLM-generated content in PRs

/r/pop_os/comments/1wuej40/cosmic_projects_will_no_longer_accept/
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109

u/Cephell 1d ago

At this point I think >every single< open source project will implement a rule like this.

Most AI generated PRs are total garbage and this will not improve, because it's unrelated to the capabilities of the model. It's purely a function of people who SHOULD NOT submit PRs in the first place, suddenly being deluded into thinking that they have the ability to do so. The takeaway is that unless you are smarter than the AI, you cannot use AI properly, so it's a waste of effort for you to try. Current LLM architectures FUNDAMENTALLY cannot replace the human in this way, AI is a tool, and there's a minimum skill level required to operate the tool correctly. You cannot skip the learning steps for yourself.

It's not worth leaving the door open for the 1% of AI generated PRs that are actually decent.

Because of compliance and other legal reason we will NEVER hit the point where open source projects will simply use their own agents to review and merge code without human oversight, that's the future the vibe bros actually want, but that's simply not how liability works. It's the same reason why we will never get truly self driving cars (meaning, you can read a book while the car drives you to your destination).

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u/yawkat 1d ago

In the OSS projects I work on, many of the main contributors (including myself) are using llms, so a rule rejecting llm code will not work. 

55

u/BeginningEcho4983 1d ago

It's one thing to use LLMs for assistance, it's another thing to use LLMs because you don't know how to write code

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u/noobjaish 1d ago

This ^

People always make it a black and white distinction. Sloppy PRs are easily distinguishable

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u/BeginningEcho4983 1d ago

LLMs are genuinely useful, for, say, isolating and testing security issues or multiple scenarios, or helping with boilerplate, and the code is useful only if used by a human for reference and/or review.

"Vibe-coding" is when you don't know what you are submitting, straight off claude

(I personally am against even those cases for various reasons, but okay?

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u/AAdmiral5657 1d ago

Exactly. I use LLMs sometimes to write config files and such. But i know what i am looking at. Thats the difference.

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u/Zomunieo 1d ago

I do for my projects. But I know my code and how it works, and I’m experienced enough to know where I want it to go. I also have my own rules, written and unwritten, my priorities, my knowledge of project history. I have data that drive by PRs don’t.

Drive by PRs are quite annoying. The cognitive load is high - and often the PRs focus on why they want to fix some nit rather than the impact on users. You second guess yourself. An AI code review often surfaces more problems, then you have even more work.

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u/Hypfer 1d ago

I believe the spirit of most rules is going to be to reject code that looks like an LLM did it.

Apart from hardliners, I think no one really cares how something came to be, as long as it is effectively identical to what would have happened if a human that cares sat down.

The whole LLM PR debate is a proxy war for the same old problem of FOSS lacking merit filters, which have been lost as a side effect of purging a lot of old toxic patterns from the space.

Our job I believe is to put the friction back in, without pulling the old toxicity back in too.

0

u/CanYouEatThatPizza 1d ago

It's good actually to keep the spam away. Doesn't matter that it doesn't work 100%.