Based on recent comments this feels like a discussion we should have. So…topic, basically.
I’m not looking to be chief noisemaker on this, but I stand by what I wrote in !privacy and what’s in my post history.
https://lemmy.ml/post/48724623/26190950
Let’s have at; do we want a [AI] and [NOT AI] tag. Why or why not?
Yes, [AI] should be mandatory. No need for the other one, that’s just the standard.
I think [AI] tags would be good. That way a certain subset of members could just drive-by downvote without getting themselves dirty. [NOT AI] seems redudant since we’ve already defined [AI], but again for quick filtering purposes, I see no harm in both.
Having both an [AI] and a [not AI] tag allows immediate differentiation between a not AI post and a did not tag post.
But it’s annoying. Non AI should be default, AI has to be marked.
Edit: whoops, I thought this was a different community. Ignore me.
Yes, but no. [Not AI] tags would be just as much for your benefit as it would be for the poster’s. Until they become official tags in a mandatory field to post, someone who cuts corners is going to skip reading the rules and post without a tag. Or even if the onus were only on the “AI” posters, then they’ll miss or forget to check the box, select the tag, etc.Therefore, you’ll want to be able to sort by [Not AI], and then safely assume that anything else probably isn’t worth your time. Additionally, someone who uses AI and then intentionally abuses the [Not AI] tag could be assumed to have lied about anything else in their project, and should not be considered a trustworthy creator or worthwhile poster.I want the subreddit to be at least 95% NOT AI, but without completely excluding AI content (which must be tagged) and I don’t want to see everything tagged “[NOT AI]” because that’s genuinely obnoxious.
I understand that this is maybe not realistically achievable given the technical limitations within the Lemmy platform, but those limitations are not going to make such an implementation any less obnoxious, even if it is implemented that way for my benefit.
I would rather trust the mods and downvoters to clean up not-tagged or dishonestly Not-AI-tagged AI content, personally.
Yeah, I thought I was in one of the programming communities (we call them communities vs subreddits, which is why they’re prepended with “c/” instead of “r/”), which is why I was being so anal about creators and their values/meticulousness.
Obviously, for a community that’s often full of people posting “look what I found,” or “here’s my advice,” I was proposing far too much rigor that would absolutely kill the mood here.
Therefore, you’ll want to be able to sort by [Not AI]
No, I don’t. I’d rather have no tags at all and some AI posts in there than every post needing annoying tags in the title. Also not every post is related to a specific piece of software
Oh, I just noticed what community I was commenting in. Yes, you’re completely right, then. It’s more of a helpful little tag for those who are interested than a filter for different types of creators.
I’d assumed, obviously incorrectly and with the wrong context, that you were expressing anti-AI views, so I was trying to communicate how not fully standardizing (labeling) the data (posts) would affect you from your, once again, improperly assumed perspective.
Oh, I hold anti AI views :-) Just not so fierce that I want to be warned of every mention
Reasonable.
That way a certain subset of members could just drive-by downvote without getting themselves dirty.
I think tags could be alright but only if this is not allowed, it is unreasonable to ask people to disclose something just so others can shit on them for it.
it is unreasonable to ask people to disclose something just so others can shit on them for it.
I totally dig what your saying. I’m not a downvoter period. In my short time here at Lemmy, AI assisted projects are going to get shit on one way or another. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. I think the narrative of this thread is to attempt to make things conducive to all users. I personally do not outright reject AI assisted projects. My main concern is if I spin up a container and it turns out to be a doughnut. AI assisted or no, unless you speak multi code languages fluently, you are taking a risk either way. You are placing your trust in the dev and the few that can read code.
you are taking a risk either way. You are placing your trust in the dev and the few that can read code.
There is definitely a trust issue and a need for ways of conveying and building trust in smaller software projects. I think a much better solution there would be discussions about the code and how it works that aren’t hostile interrogations with foregone conclusions in pursuit of a broader anti-AI agenda. If someone just put a lot of effort into making something the details of that process should be on their mind, it should be possible to make them more accessible to people and convey that there is non-artificial understanding behind the project. Automatic hostility and suspicion makes those kinds of conversations harder and less likely.
Automatic hostility and suspicion makes those kinds of conversations harder and less likely.
You’re preaching to the choir but I will give an amen.
the only way they could prevent that was to mandate that disclosure had to be in the post body somewhere and not the title, that way it only appears once someone opens the post. Mostly because some posts are visible from feeds other than subscribed which means that members would see it that are outside of the normal/average visitors here.
Honestly I think i would prefer that. Instead of requiring a tag, require AI disclosure on the project somewhere in the post body.
That way a certain subset of members could just drive-by downvote without getting themselves dirty.
Honestly. I was fully on board with this until you brought that up. Yea that just 180’d my opinion on if it should be tagged significantly.
I don’t want something to be tagged to be able to allow people to mass downvote it or hide it from sight, that’s not productive to anyone. I wanted the tag to be able to filter it out when I didn’t want to see it, but be able to see it if I felt I wanted to. Allowing for mass downvote on it will significantly hinder that.
I don’t want something to be tagged to be able to allow people to mass downvote
I commiserate, but they are going to get downvoted one way or another
Yea but a tag system will allow it to be seen from outside the community. a general requirement in the body of the post of disclosing if AI was used and how I think would go a long way better in the long run, and requires the person to have entered the post and read it first.
I think I’m leaning more towards that style instead. if something interests me I can join it read it and if its AI and I don’t want to see it I can go elsewhere, that requires people to put bare amount of effort instead of just seeing a [AI] tag from all[/active/hot] (idk what the actual lemmy endpoint is I use tess) and being like “oh ai downvote”
I get what you are saying. The downvoting doesn’t bother me a bit. You can downvote me in to the stone age and I wouldn’t give a shit. The curb stomping, anger, and animosity directed at anything AI tho, I think is out of hand. Every forum I’ve ever been in has a Rule 1. Few live up to that creed. I don’t say this from any moral high ground or superiority whatsoever, but I find it a character flaw not to be able to control yourself as an adult and think ‘Yeah I’m staunchly anti-AI. I have very, very strong opinions of it’s usage in any circumstance. However, there are 8.4 billion other people who might not share my disgust with AI so I’ll just skip on to the next thread.’ Agree to disagree in other words.
That way a certain subset of members could just drive-by downvote without getting themselves dirty.
good lord, who does this? why waste the thumb energy? seems like a dick move… it’s easier to do no harm. crappy posts will die by themselves.
Again, I dig what you are saying, and I have a similar mind set. However, there is a strong faction of very vocal anti-AI anything, here at Lemmy. Both sides of the argument about AI coded projects or AI in general do have some valid points. However, in my estimation, and as I’ve said before, it’s 2026 and AI is here to stay. It is a good assumption that any project within the last 5 years or so has been at least AI assisted, if not outright vibe coded. Even updates to long standing projects now have AI involvement.
Yes, to me, the option to exercise your mouse wheel to glide over posts you are uninterested in, seems very obvious.
A mandatory [AI] tag? Sure.
A [NOT AI] tag? No, that’s the default. Why normalise AI bullshit even further?
But mandating [NOT AI] means that people have to go out of their way to declare their work is AI-free. It requires active lying rather than lying by omission—I think there are a non-zero number of people who would be inclined to omit an AI tag but would not want to go as far as explicitly lying about their work being AI-free.
Agreed. “Failed to disclose” isn’t condemned as harshly as “Blatantly lied”, even if it should be. So obfuscating a project’s AI usage may be seen as less risky than being upfront about it.
A responsibly transparent project should advertise itself as AI-free if it truly is.
Then failure to disclose can be condemned, for instance by temporary bans
Yes, please. I don’t like seeing a “neat handy application” only to find that 95% of it was coded by Claude, the fact of which is either buried, or not even mentioned until you visit the repo and see that it’s the top contributor.
Generally accompanied by crickets to questions a out the project and on some cases some large list of vulnerabilities on some projects that got popular enough.
I absolutely don’t want Meta Tags in every titles. It makes reading the list of posts super annoying.
I also don’t feel the need to know whether there’s some AI commits, but I do want to know if a project is largely vibe coded. I don’t have an objective metric on where this line could be drawn.
I think the status quo is kinda fine. Some commenter will point it out and will get enough upvotes to be visible on first glance. It’s not perfect but good enough for me.
I find myself commenting three questions on any post about a new application somebody developed.
- What is your experience in [subject matter of app]?
- What is your experience in software development?
- What percentage of the code for this app was written by AI? What percent was written by you?
Personally, I wouldn’t mind if all new app posts were required to answer these questions for their post. It doesn’t discriminate, it just asks them to lay their cards on the table for everyone to see. The community can judge from there.
Some commenter will point it out and will get enough upvotes to be visible on first glance. It’s not perfect but good enough for me.
I don’t necessarily disagree here, however there is always the edge case of a certain overly-vocal group being 100% anti-AI, and that any usage of AI is considered a crime against humanity.
I’m not part of that group per se, but I also want full disclosure. If you used AI to get things going and handled it yourself from there, that’s one thing. Constant commits from Claude or whatever is a whole different bucket of shit I refuse to touch.
Yes, the crowd will point it out if the author didn’t and you can decide what to make of it. It’s probably discouraging to post slopware if you know you’re in for a lot of criticism, I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than being forced to flag it [AI].
I don’t disagree. Perhaps tags at the end of post titles rather than the beginning, or tags in the body of the post? I’m not sure what people use to filter these things and how those different options would effect usability.
I’d be fine with the end, but it’d probably be overlooked a lot. Given how long some of these posts are, they would probably be hidden these as well unless the post starts with [Disclaimer: this has mostly been vibe coded]
No tag for not AI.
Only AI tags needed, which helps remind people that slop should be warned against. We don’t need to warn for slop free apps
But wouldn’t that be far more useful? Many people seem to be looking for projects who don’t ever touch AI. Devs who use a [No AI] tag show that they follow the same agenda and most likely will not change their opinion on the next release.
No, because the absence of the tag indicates it’s free of AI
Or that the author didn’t know about the rule?
That’s why we have mods
Or…we could make it easier for them and make the use of the tag a conscious decision indicating something instead of relying on the mod’s voluntary work to correct for an implied meaning.
We could make it easier for mods by reporting articles to the mod.
Even better: We could mandate every post to put [Moderate This] at the end if they don’t follow the rules.
I feel like this could lead to discrimination and prejudice against ai users. It should have been implemented years ago.
To clarify…you’re in favour of discrimination and prejudice against ai users?
Yes. They should be told to sit in the corner with a big cone shaped hat on like the old days.
I am as well.
Why’s that?
Either ban vibe coded projects entirely or ban vibe coded projects that have less than a year of history. If allowing “mature” vibe coded projects, require the tag.
Spaces like this become so much worse when “i made this last week look at the shiny ui 🎉🎉🎉🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀” projects that will never ever see any form of maintenance are allowed.
This is a rule that could actually be implemented and would help with the slop vs not-slop judgement call
Just ban AI already
This is a better plan.
What does it mean for a project to deserve the [AI] tag? This matters, because you may have a lot of projects where a developer may think “no” and someone else thinks “yes”. Some examples from my day job:
- Developer used AI to understand part of the codebase and suggest ways to accomplish goal. Developer incorporated that suggestion, though using their own knowledge deviated from AI’s suggestion in parts. Developer wrote the code themselves. Is this project [AI] or [NOT AI]?
- Developer used AI to review existing (human-written) code for quality and security purposes. AI noticed some issues and proposed fixes. Developer reviewed and accepted them. Is this project [AI]?
- Developer knew they wanted to implement a feature, and while implementing it there was a boilerplate function. Developer asked AI to write this function, manually reviewed it, confirmed it worked, and added it to the codebase. Is this project [AI]?
In these examples the developer carefully reviews the AI’s output, which I think distinguishes it from vibe-coded slop, which at least is what I want to ignore.
It’s also worth noting that an open-source project may receive and incorporate a well-written contribution where the human developer used AI carefully like this. Unless they disclosed that they used AI, it may be unknowable to the project maintainers whether their project is [AI] or not, depending on how you define it. What tag should these projects use?
Sir, this is Lemmy. If you use AI in any way, you are clearly in league with the devil and deserve to burn.
I agree with all your points, BTW.
I posted this discussion because I wanted to explore both guard rails AND nuance around that sort of work flow, particularly for our new mod (and in light of several other scattered convos).
A lot of the diffuse FuckAI Lemmy crowd have poor understanding of code workflow. “AI bad” knee jerks so hard it’s going to dislocate something.
I’ve tried to argue this point, because roughly… ooh…100% of code gen touches AI something. So, do we tag everything?
What people really want is a [SLOP] tag, which is both lazy / not doing your own due diligence and impossible to implement.
In hindsight, I think the pragmatic approach is ultimately the workable (albeit blunted) one. Have the ai tag. It flattens everything but if stops brigading and slop, that’s the least amount of moderation work.
I appreciate you posting btw.
Sir, this is Lemmy. If you use AI in any way, you are clearly in league with the devil and deserve to burn.
Bahahahahahaha!
@festus @selfhosted Excellent examples. What the tag [AI] conveys is not what you really need to know, which is the quality of the code (component/unit), unit testing, and so forth. I assume there is some acceptance testing done at the project level. The human who submits the code must understand that flaws in their code is their responsibility, just as those who contribute/maintain the project are responsible at the system level. It is both an objective and reputational process. Does it really matter what tools are used if the work product passes the test, verification and validation criteria? Sloppy code is not unique to AI tools.
Having the tags? Sure.
Making them mandatory? Only if we have 1.- an actual process to determine whether a tag is incorrectly applied (up to a respectable level of confidence) and 2.- an adequate, *enforceable+ punishment for infringers.
Absolutely.
Yes. Anything made, posted, modified, or output by AI should be tagged as such, always, without exception.
Including immich, home assistant, syncthing, docker…
Right? Right?
https://github.blog/news-insights/research/survey-ai-wave-grows/
Yes.
Yes.
I think that unless you have some way to enforce accuracy, it’s meaningless and AFAIK automatic detection tools are no better than chance and to my knowledge, getting worse.
An AI bot operator isn’t going to tag their material as [AI], more likely than not they’d attempt to use [NOT AI].
I’d also point out that while lemmy doesn’t (yet) support hashtags, any “tagging” would probably benefit from using the existing method using a #tag.
Ultimately, you need to ask yourself, is undeclared AI that goes undetected by the community a problem, or the new “normal”?
I’ll note that I’m not a proponent of Assumed Intelligence and think that when the bubble bursts we’re going to be in a world of hurt, but with a little luck the billionaires will have lost their shirts in the process.
AFAIK automatic detection tools are no better than chance and to my knowledge, getting worse.
It depends.
There are a variety of indicators, some blatant like .cursorrules or CLAUDE.md and some key phrases that can be searched for. Unless they are actively working to hide references, these turn up in the overwhelming majority of the “not admitting but not denying” camp, or the just complete lack of disclosure.
There are also pretty solid indicators with commit logs that can be seen that are… unlikely to ever be a person.
What is getting harder is around the syntax detection tools and fragment detection tools. Some straight up rips from multiple codebases used to be obvious, but some tools are better at refactoring to make that discovery harder too.
Just to be candid, I am in no way anti-AI, I run and train my own models at home on my own hardware. Its a tool - a hammer is great for nailing a board to a wall, and an absolutely wrong choice for trying to screw together a cabinet, and I consider LLMs in the same camp.
If you’re trying to vibe code a full project, its probably going to be a massive problem. If you’re using it to parse some swagger and generate some hooks based on a prefix you defined for specific types without wanting to bother with smashing a script for the disparate types that can be easily detected with an llm… well, you’re probably using it in a way I’d agree with.
Someone did mention an automod disclosure comment, which I really like the idea of, but would need to look into for use on the fediverse, I’m really not sure how good the automods out there are these days. Last time I checked they were… not so great.
Please do! It’s always my first question when reading new projects.
