Re: [PATCH v2] SubmittingPatches: add section about AI

From: Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 8, 2025, 07:22 UTC
Message-ID: <CAP8UFD0Nrc-ENbjhP_eBmqe9jGyAd4kmp3Bw8b18JbxdC6neVQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqjz1cufcd.fsf@gitster.g>

On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 6:20 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

>
> Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> A milder way to phrase this would be to jump directly to "we reject
> >> what the sender cannot explain when asked about it".  "How does this
> >> work?"  "Why is this a good thing to do?"  "Where did it come from?"
> >> instead of saying "looks AI generated".
> >>
> >> It would sidestep the "who decides if it looks AI generated?" question.
> >
> > I don't think the "who decides if it looks AI generated?" question is
> > very relevant. If someone says that a patch looks mostly AI generated
> > and gives a good argument supporting this claim, it's the same as if
> > someone gives any other good argument against the patch. In the end,
> > the community and you decide if the argument is good enough and if the
> > patch should be rejected based on that (and other arguments for and
> > against the patch of course).
>
> And then who plays the final arbiter?

You, like for any other discussion about a patch when there are different opinions.

> One can keep insisting on a
> patch that looks to me an apparent AI slop that it was what one
> wrote oneself, but you may find it a plausible that it was a human
> creation.  Then what?

You decide if the arguments on one side are better than those on the other side, again like for any other discussion about a patch when there are different opinions.

Why should the process be different? It could be different if we think that such behavior is similar to the bad behavior we talk about in our code of conduct, but I don't think we want to go there and have some special procedures, right?

Show 5 quoted lines

> It is very much relevant to avoid such argument, because the point
> is irrelevant.  We are trying to avoid accepting something the
> submitter has no rights to claim theirs, and requesting them to
> explain where it came from, how it works, etc. would be a better
> test than "does it look AI generated?  to everybody?", wouldn't it?

The sender can ask the AI where it came from, how it works, etc, and copy-paste the AI's answers. The sender could also prompt the AI or modify its answers so that they look human generated as much as possible. So just asking those questions might not help much in some cases. In the end, whatever the answers to some questions, we have to be able to decide if the suspicious content looks too much like it has been AI generated or not.

It doesn't mean that asking those questions couldn't help in some cases. It means that we just don't want to enter into the details of which questions we can ask and if we should judge based on the answers to those questions or something else. For example our code of conduct says that we will take action "in response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful." It doesn't tie us to asking some questions and taking action based on the answers.

Thanks.