Re:OSS projects banning AI-generated contributions
by JoshTriplett on Wednesday November 11, 2026 @04:51AM
(#50451515)
> I get the feeling that banning AI code from a project nowadays ends up with people lying about their AI usage.
"If we set boundaries, people will violate them, so we shouldn't set boundaries."
No. It turns out, empirically, that most efforts to hide LLM usage are mostly unsuccessful. And most people aren't even trying to hide it.
Also, "the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero": https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra... . We could go even further and even stricter trying to make sure that zero dishonest LLM usage gets through even from people trying to subvert the contribution policy, but that would make the experience worse for genuine contributors, not least of which because of false positives.
"If we set boundaries, people will violate them, so we shouldn't set boundaries."
No. It turns out, empirically, that most efforts to hide LLM usage are mostly unsuccessful. And most people aren't even trying to hide it.
Also, "the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero": https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra... . We could go even further and even stricter trying to make sure that zero dishonest LLM usage gets through even from people trying to subvert the contribution policy, but that would make the experience worse for genuine contributors, not least of which because of false positives.