Just seeing the list here: https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware
I don’t know what to think about it, many incredible open-source projects went downhill, some worse than others, full AI permission usage and some of them even advertise AI providers on README.md. I’m even using many of them myself.
Even the good guys are falling, I’m not sure what to think about it. Am I overreacting maybe?
You might think, that’s fine, not a big deal, some of them just allow AI usage, but not AI generated code, but for how long? If you allow use of AI for anything the tendency is that you’ll be even more open about it in the future.
List of projects that personally draw my attention or I use eventually:
- Firefox: not unexpected, but still, I had hope on Mozilla bring more tech awareness on mainstream
- Spaceship prompt: I use this on my terminal for customization, why’d you need AI for such a simple project?
- VLC: just sad
- curl: sad x 10
- Vim: sad x 20
- zoxide: they literally promoting AI providers in the README, such a simple tool as well, why?
- CoMaps/Organic Maps/OsmAnd: the few ones providing a good alternative to Google Maps
- Element: that’s literally the most used client for Matrix I guess?
- Python: I thought they were the good guys as well
- Lemmy: unexpected, code of conduct says it’s allowed
- Linux: the final boss, unbelievable
Is there any hope at all? Or am I just overreacting?
- Linux: the final boss, unbelievable
Shows you don’t bother to actually read the mailing list or even just keep up with the open source development discussion.
Linux was probably one of the first places AI was invovled in because it’s a well documented highly used software which makes it an easy test bed for LLMs to showcase their abilities.
That was 3 years ago when GPT 3 released.
That absolutely does not mean it has vibe coded slop being added to it. Bad code is still bad code, and Linus will happily tear you a new one (and hand out a ban) for submitting such garbage in a merge request.
Again, these type of posts are dumb and throw outrage at the wrong target. All this anger and disappointment should be directed at the bubble pumping machine like Nvidia, OpenAI, MSFT, etc.
All of these foss project devs would probably have no problem using a local LLM in their work (which many already do) since the hardware requirements have been steadily falling, despite Nvidia’s efforts to enforce their stranglehold on cloud demand.
Oh geez it’s almost like using a technology doesn’t automatically make you a “bad guy”.
Why using technology would make someone a bad person?
Even the good guys are falling
…
Python: I thought they were the good guys as well
It seemed like you were implying that people using AI are bad guys.
AI has moral issues to begin with. See how people refuse to buy Nestlé products after knowing they use slave labour. AI is worse than that.
That’s a crazy take. AI companies are worse than slave labor?
I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s that extreme, but a lot of the data labeling needed for training/post-training is done by people in slave like conditions.
There have absolutely been cases of that kind of menial computer work being done through slave labor, notably a lot of pig butchering scams. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that through a chain of outsourcing and independent contractors, some data labeling work is being done through slave labor.
They comply with AI practices, they surely aren’t the good guys.
VLC providing real-time subtitles seems like a cool feature, no? A reasonable use of AI? Or are they doing other worse/bad things with AI?
I’ve watched a few series with AI generated subtitles once and it’s real dog shit. They miss some obvious words that completely breaks the immersion of what I’m watching.
On top of that, they’re selling this feature as something good, instead of incentivating real subtitle writers that do a pretty solid work.
You’ll see more AI slop and less good work from real people.
It’s not VLC role to give a job to subtitle writers. Their role is to let you play any piece of media. AI subs are supposed to fill the gap when there are no quality subs available or no subs at all. As a feature it makes complete sense for a media player. No company will stop hiring sub writers because of this feature in VLC. And in the really rare cases it would happen I guess thiese companies already don’t care about providing quality subs.
Ah, dang, that doesn’t sound good. And good point about subtitle writers.
Anything to put people out of business, right?
As other commenters have said, a key factor hasn’t hit yet: AI is artificially cheap because the whole thing is running on a bunch of investor money in a giant loop.
Once some IPOs go through, these companies will be required (by law) to produce a return to their investors. Given the actual costs of the AI chain, that will be extremely, extremely difficult to do, if it is possible at all.
At the very least, expect some mergers / acquisitions as companies try and consolidate to fix the shortfall by reducing competition. Though specifics are hard to pin down, given the complexity of the production chain and the associated energy costs, this likely won’t be enough.
The market will self-correct when it’s cheaper to do things the old way. Obviously, FOSS projects should fall off the AI wagon pretty quickly, since they’re not revenue generating anyway (at least not directly).
You’re not overreacting. Projects enabling AI and ushering in the demise of humanity deserve to die. There’s still hope that people will rise up against the machines, but the window of opportunity is closing.
Once token based pricing hits all the major platforms I expect it will slow down
Not long now, Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs incoming, monetization everywhere.
Imagine doing basic business things like having to show an ROI and public disclosure is going to collapse the economy. Lol. Should’ve happened 2 years ago.
curl is definitely NOT writing code with AI if you follow the newsletter. And wget will never be a valid alternative to curl if you know what they both do. You can safely remove it from the list.
I feel like you can’t just look to see if a piece of software is on the list and immediately decide it’s the devil. Having spent a lot of time reading the list, and reading the links provided as sources for several of the bits of software I use, the barrier to get your project on that list is pretty low. As an example that I can remember, one dev basically said “I can’t police with 100% accuracy if someone used an LLM or not. I expect every submission to be able to be explained by the human that submitted it fully and it’d be nice if people disclosed when they use an LLM.” The list marks that project as “Permissive AI Policy”.
I don’t love that this is where we are, but if you think you are going to use a computer and do anything particularly useful with it and avoid 100% anything that may have ever been touched by an LLM, you are unfortunately going to struggle significantly. I appreciate the list greatly, as it does link to its receipts. It allows us to look at a project and read their policies and decide a little bit quicker than doing all the work ourselves. I don’t think I can legitimately stand up and say “if it is on the list, I won’t use it” however.
I am personally a fan of
xhover curl. Simple syntax IMO.
I’m all for not having vibe coded security vulnerabilities creeping into my apps but that repo lists apps if they’ve ever even attached copilot to an issue/pr which is pretty hard not to do because the button is bigger than attaching yourself to an issue.
Long story short: LLMs can provide value in software development, especially in senior developer hands. Apparently that value is not something many feel they can just leave on the table.
This doesn’t answer the question whether you can separate the tool from it’s maker or from how it came into existence or even about possible long-term consequences of it’s usage.
But for a lot of programmers these are questions they don’t feel compelled to consider, and I can empathize. LLMs are now here and they, like most technology, won’t just disappear again for ethical or long-term-risk reasons. Completely shunning them will become a niche, even in the often idealistic world of open-source.
I’m looking forward to when the hype dies down and the general understanding of what LLMs really are and where they are useful becomes more normalized. This whole “AI” nonsense drives me nuts.
Sounds like you’re just laundering marketing talking points from Big AI.
I will continue to participate in a significant, thriving, and very long-lived movement of people writing code for people. When it comes to the slop machines, the battle is just getting started.
Well, I write code for people, too, and still much of it by hand. But there is also a non-trivial portion that can be generated and quickly evaluated. It’s not the majority and it’s hit or miss, but in aggregate I’m measuring a positive impact. It’s far from the insane promises made by the AI companies, but it’s measurable, in real numbers. Think more of a 10% increase, not 10x. Is this enough to justify a trillion dollar industry? Doubtful. Is is low enough to be discarded? Not in a serious productivity focused environment.
I’m afraid arguments of mere utility don’t hold much sway for me. Asbestos is also very useful as a fire retardant. 🫠
Funny: I often call LLMs the asbestos of our time when talking to my colleagues. There are legitimate fears about the long-term consequences. But as with all risks, the industry — myself included — will happily take them until the consequences fully materialize.
You can make a bold bet by shunning LLMs completely and thus avoiding the associated risk if you believe in them strongly. If you’re right you stand to be in a fantastic position.
LLMs can provide value in software development, especially in senior developer hands.
The value they do provide is in scamming and providing skill atrophy.
You forget one thing, it’s not fair with the ones who stand against it.
There are plenty and good projects who stand against AI, is it fair with those who are trying to do the correct thing?
I don’t think so.
Yeah agreed, it’s incredibly disheartening… The Starlight Network maintains a NoAI list at least: https://noai.starlightnet.work/
If the argument is that AI code is devaluing labour, then you’d need to be critical of any automation. The steam machine devalued the labour of artisans, robots devalued the labour of assembly line workers. You can hold this belief but you’d basically have to become an Amish OR you say: Yeah this devalues labour, so we should fight for the workers getting their share in increased productivity at least.
The Amish were right
Maybe they’re right… I also had that thought in the last weeks I have to admit.
But… you also seem to be using technology to take part in this discussion. So are you just as inconsequential as everyone here who is so critical of the technology itself while using a lot of other technologies?
I try to limit technology use but unfortunately the internet is the most effective way to reach people. It’s like firefighters going into a building so they can pull people out.
steam machine devalued the labour of artisans
I’m so cooked that my brain went: “how is this the fault of Gabe Newell?”
Lmao no honey, no
I do think you are overreacting. I don’t see why AI-generated code in FOSS projects is necessarily bad. I think the policy in the Linux kernel development makes a lot of sense: Human maintainers own their commits and are responsible for any bugs. It’s not like humans did generate bug-free code before the rise of AI tools.
I think a lot of the AI hype and it’s implications can be criticised: environmental impacts, job losses, tech feudalism, etc. Yeah I totally get that and it’s important to voice this critique. But the technology in itself is not evil, nor good. It’s just technology.
You also wouldn’t criticise the invention or usage of lenses, just because you can use them to build rifles, right? It makes more sense to address those uses of the technology that cause harm, and not those that are beneficial for humans, like having glasses or satellite optics.
Technology beyond what we can make with our hands from readily available materials is unnatural. That’s why it tends to be far more bad than good and take away our humanity. Humans are finely tuned to live in the natural world, not the technological world. Ignoring that has had devastating consequences and it will only get worse.
Not even remotely an overreaction. AI-generated code is morally incompatible with FOSS. And yes, I will continue to defend this position for many years to come. It really makes no difference to me what Linus Torvalds or any other influencer has to say on the matter.
and a foss model made with only open source/public domain code?
AI-generated code is morally incompatible with FOSS
Whitewashing foss can be done and I’m sure has been done without ai. Any old obfuscatory code will whitewash foss code.
Then there are companies like Bambu that take foss, fork it and declare it proprietary without even the veneer of whitewashing.
deleted by creator
To leave a thing because of blind hatred for AI and no proof that the AI has actually been a burden is definitely overreacting.
Most developers have found a way to incorporate AI into their development. Even if it’s just using to review code for bugs.
My suggestion would be, whenever you think of AI, stop thinking about AI.
Sorry to be that idealist, but open-source used to mean something, not just the word. It used to be a symbol, people who stand for something. But now? It feels dirty. I don’t care if AI will do an excellent job, it still [insert all dozens of issues behind AI use here that I’m tired of repeating].
For idealists this is a hard time indeed, but isn’t it always?
true because fundamentalists are always hiding a secret doubt
le carre
this is comforting
Exactly, it was a long death, but in the end open-source fell victim to capitalism and capitalisation.
AI and Rust* are just the final nails in the coffin.
*I mean the weird link between Rust and MIT here.
It feels dirty in your opinion, because you’re making “AI hate” part of your personality.
Perhaps judging software you can’t even write yourself is not something you should be spending a lot of time on.
and no proof that the AI has actually been a burden
You commenting that just highlights that you’ve either never had to work with a developer who uses AI, or do not have the adequate level of skill to correctly review something submitted by a developer who uses AI.
I review things all the time. Crap comes from people and from AI. People just love to let it roam free, and that becomes a problem.
My quote was…. Just because something might have AI involved, doesn’t mean it’s suddenly “slop” and no one can show me an open source project they used that went from “great” to “slop” because of AI.
I guess you missed all those studies/results about:
- Technical debt (including code quality, code ownership and conservation of familiarity, complexity traps, etc…)
- Cognitive debt (including but not limited to: general cognitive debt, codebase cognitive debt, skill atrophy, etc…)
- Systems theory (specifically failure cascades in complex systems)
- Psychological effects (confidence machines, eliza effect / AI psychosis, Gell-Mann Amnesia, false consensus effect / illusory truth effect, etc… x 100)
🥱
Professional developer here. I use AI every day at work and still think it’s utter crap.
Can you give me an example of how you’ve used it properly and how it failed?
I use Claude Code for work, and before that I used Cursor. I’d say I have about a year of total experience with the tooling, and I’ve used all the various AI ephemera: MCP integrations, RAG context management, skills, vector databases, custom orchestration laters, etc, etc, etc. I’ve built AI-powered tools like customer service chat bots as enterprise projects. I’ve even experimented with using AI in personal projects just to see if the experience is any better than working on large enterprise projects with years of accumulated technical warts.
It’s all crap.
Actually it’s worse than crap, because at least a turd has the decency to identify itself with a foul odor. AI code is insidious. An LLM is just a statistical model of grammar, so its output always has the same statistical features of correct code. It looks correct, and when it’s wrong, it’s wrong in ways that can be very hard to spot. Of course there are also times when it’s just brazenly, comically, catastrophically wrong right from the jump, and it’s always fun to point and laugh when that happens… but the other times, when it’s almost right, when it’s right enough to slip an immaculately subtle, server-killing memory leak past code review and past QA, it stops being funny.
Now your production app is dead in the water for no clear reason, and you’ve got a release candidate made of a dozen AI-generated PRs, any or all of which could be responsible. And at this point you realize that you don’t actually know this code anymore. Yeah, you prompted it. You guided the agent through the process and you carefully reviewed its output… probably. Were you actually paying attention that day, or did you auto-approve Claude’s changes while you were in the middle of something else? Either way, you didn’t actually sit there hammering out the keystrokes and getting that reinforcement learning that only comes from physically engaging your brain with a problem, so now you’re not even sure where to start debugging.
And by the end of it all, you’ve burned a zillion tokens — which probably isn’t something that matters to you right now, but it will in 6 months or in a year when the big AI firms are forced to IPO or run out of money, and they all start scrambling to close their utterly massive revenue shortfalls by dumping subscriptions and switching to usage-based models. Suddenly the $200 a month you were paying for a Claude Max subscription is $200 a DAY, and now your passion project costs triple your mortgage.
Oh I see you’re telling it to make code for entire features and just accepting what it made without going over it yourself, or … I’m gonna stop here. I know where the actual problem is.
The only way to go over something yourself correctly is by doing it yourself correctly.
You: fire all developers but yourself.
Got it. 👍
Only if you want to go over everything.
If you don’t: you either need to make someone else responsible and accountable for going over something, or be accountable for not being responsible.
Remember:
A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” – IBM Training Manual, 1979.
Sometimes, yeah, when management is constantly breathing down your neck telling you that you need to be more “agentic”. Just typing a prompt and waiting for the LLM to spit out a feature is the fantasy workflow that a lot of orgs are pushing for, and it’s what companies like Anthropic keep pretending is possible.
But even the more careful and focused approaches still produce crap — or, after much hand-holding and angst, they give you something that actually does work while conforming to the styles and standards of your platform… but only after you’ve spent more time babysitting the AI than it would have taken you to just write the damn code yourself. And, again, you’ve burned a shitload of tokens in the process.
The only thing AI coding tools are reliably good at is writing “boilerplate”, but non-AI tools have existed to handle that stuff for decades… and honestly, if your project has that much required boilerplate, it’s probably not very well-engineered in the first place and the AI is just acting as a crunch holding up weak architecture.
Have you considered creating a skill telling it to make no mistakes?
People have unironically suggested this to me and I’ve tried it, because… fuck it, why not?
It doesn’t work. :(
Hilarious
Sadly AI is here to stay and we need to learn to live with it, differencing it by its owners, avoiding those from Big Tech and using it with common sense and there where it is really usefull and needed, not as toy, to create memes or substitute our own intelligence and creativity, but as tool eg.in certain complex and repititive tasks or researches in thousends of documents, where it make sense.
Some things by nature cause more harm than good. Like nuclear weapons and AI. It doesn’t matter if they have some beneficial uses when any use also has some negative consequences and it’s far more tempting for people to misuse them.
It’s way more complex. Certainly new tecnology can be misused, but this isn’t the problem of the tecnology, but one of the people or companies. A car is usefull for a lot of people, despite there are idiots using it to drive one with 120 kmh in a residencial zone. Nuclear energy can be used for weapons but also for cancer treatments in medicine or engines in space probes. Without AI a lot of things, materials and even medicine which you use currently every day wouldn’t exist, climate investigation would be impossible in realtime,etc. Not only some things are positive, a lot of it is, bad are some things by it’s use which some made of it.
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/15-times-to-use-ai-and-5-not-to
You misunderstood. Because human nature is as it is, any way you try to manage it many technologies will be used for bad far more than they are used for good. And even people attempting to use technology for good usually end up causing more bad than good because those technologies have unintended consequences. Usually because they are unnatural and take us away from our natural environment and behaviors that we are finely tuned for.
Things were a lot better 100 or 200 years ago. People were happier even if they had less by materialistic measures. I really don’t care about modern materials, medicine or climate investigation. I just want to be left alone and live the way I was designed to live, not in some sterilized padded room where all my material needs are met and I never get sick. Diseases, injuries and hunger are part of life and I’d much rather get sick and die living freely in the forest than live as a comfy pet.
This is spot on for me too.
Whether it is my non nuerotypical attributes, or the (god aweful) way I was raised seeing so much suffering, I have always craved community, and humanity. I crave humanity, and delight myself in small good things humans do. That’s what keeps me alive and going.
This tool, tech, whatever… Im so tired of saying those letters… it is appearing to me, to be antithesis to humanity… and earth as a whole. Im not even done being mad plastics are used so irresponsibly, and now we (I am from the fucking US) are going to add even more issues in multiple ways. HELL, MANUFACTURING IS STILL DIRTY AF and so what, let’s add more? More fucking garbarge for the earth and planet that gives me and everyone life? Humans are mucking up what I absolutely fucking cherish, all while treating eachother, and everyone/thing else, like fucking shit. fuck heirarchy. This is only happening for profit, not because we want to meet human needs, it is entirely profit driven. Money is god and im not here for that.
Two bunnies and one groundhog live in my small yard. I often see them have breakfast in the mornings. I dont keep an american style lawn. There’s food there for them, I enjoy things like this a lot. When the majority of humanity seems to crave convience plastic and now convience tools (thought machine? idea generator? human replacer?) over actual human connectivity and human craftmanship… I … dont feel like I belong. Incomming depression. I dont get it. I want to love our plantet and actually take care of it properly, and sustain. Treat eachother well. I was taught to leave a place better than you found it, and to be kind, you grow up, and who the hell is kind? Not the people putting datacenters up, that’s for sure.
and there are so many people who dont care about our planet being a mess and overconsume like it is normal.
You’d think we had enough recorded history to figure out how to do this human shit responsibly.
I was never into community, nature or human interaction but even an emotionless former technophile introvert like me or Ted Kaczynski can see how bad technology has made things and how much worse it’s going to get and realize actually community, nature and human interaction are more important than so-called progress, efficiency, comfort, material goods or really anything else. I think anyone can see this but depending on predispositions it may take more or less life experience and study.
I dont like the environmental impacts of data centers nor the exploitation capabilities of this tool.
I cant get past these two.
I fear we live in a world folks just dont do the right thing. Sure this tool helps a small task, but ultimately, this isnt helping anyone but the wealth hoarders at the moment
