The GNOME.org Extensions hosting for GNOME Shell extensions will no longer accept new contributions with AI-generated code. A new rule has been added to their review guidelines to forbid AI-generated code.
Due to the growing number of GNOME Shell extensions looking to appear on extensions.gnome.org that were generated using AI, it’s now prohibited. The new rule in their guidelines note that AI-generated code will be explicitly rejected
Banning a tool because the people using it don’t check their work seems shortsighted. Ban the poor users, not the tool.
We do this all the time. I’m certified for a whole bunch of heavy machinery, if I were worse people would’ve died
And even then, I’ve nearly killed someone. I haven’t, but on a couple occasions I’ve come way too close
It’s good that I went through training. Sometimes, it’s better to restrict who is able to use powerful tools
Yeah something tells me operating heavy machinery is different from uploading an extension for a desktop environment. This isn’t building medical devices, this isn’t some misra compliance thing, this is a widget. Come on, man, you have to know the comparison is insane.
People have already died to AI. It’s cute when the AI tells you to put glue on your pizza or asks you to leave your wife, it’s not so cute when architects and doctors use it
Bad information can be deadly. And if you rely too hard on AI, your cognitive abilities drop. It’s a simple mental shortcut that works on almost everything
It’s only been like 18 months, and already it’s become very apparent a lot of people can’t be trusted with it. Blame and punish those people all you want, it’ll just keep happening. Humans love their mental shortcuts
Realistically, I think we should just make it illegal to have customer facing LLMs as a service. You want an AI? Set it up yourself. It’s not hard, but realizing it’s just a file on your computer would do a lot to demystify it
Have people died to desktop extensions?
Cause that’s the topic here.
You’re fighting a holy war against all AI, dune style.
I’m saying this is a super low risk environment where the implications appear to be extra try/catch blocks the code reviewers don’t like – not even incorrect functionality.
Well I was just arguing that people generally are using AI irresponsibly, but if you want to get specific…
You say ban the users, but realistically how are they determining that? The only way to reliably check if something is AI is human intuition. There’s no tool to do that, it’s a real problem
So effectively, they made it an offense to submit AI slop. Because if you just use AI properly as a resource, no one would be able to tell
So what are you upset about?
They did basically what you suggested, they just did it by making a rule so that they can have a reason to reject slop without spending too much time justifying the rejection
I’m only responding to this thread, yes, not the vast irreparable harm llms are doing to society and the world. Those are different arguments and I don’t see any coupling between them at all.
I say ban users who submit code that causes problems. If that’s mostly AI shit, fine, but I’d be shocked if humans didn’t also submit trash of a different sort. You ask how can they realistically determine that…isn’t that literally what this entire thread is about? I don’t think “using AI” is a criteria for anything. Their actual, real problem is with bad code they have to deal with, so why is “it uses AI 😭” the metric rather than “bad code”? Your entire argument seems circular to me.
I don’t think you understand what doing code reviews is like.
So someone submits terrible code. You don’t get to just say “this is bad code” and reject it wholesale, you have to explain in exhaustive detail what the problems are. Doing otherwise leads to really toxic environments. It’s killed countless projects
That’s why you write rules. You don’t have to argue if they need tests or not, you tap the sign and reject it without actually reviewing it if it doesn’t meet the requirement
Same thing here. You open up vibe coded nonsense so you tap the sign and reject it without bothering to review it. Do the same thing with “bad code” as a reason and it starts insane drama.
People are really sensitive about their code, and there’s a whole methodology around how to do without ending up in a screaming match
They should state a justification. Not merely what they are looking for to identify AI generated code.
The justification could be the author is unlikely to be capable of maintenance. In which case the extension is just going to inconvenience/burden onto others.
So far their is no justification stated besides, da fuk and yuk.
Exactly, there isn’t a criteria other than the reviewer getting butthurt. Granted this is gnome, so doing whatever they feel like regardless of consequences is kind of their thing, but a saner organization would try to make the actual measurable badness more clear.
A saner organization would also hit up submitters for a reviewer’s fee. This would reduce AI spam. Barriers to entry matter.
A reviewers fee is equivalent to Canonical offering customer support contracts. Obviously a person that needs to lean on AI as a crutch, is just screaming out for reviewers to act as advisers. The reviewer just wielding the giant DENIED stamp is fun, but doesn’t address the issue of noobs implicitly asking to work with a consultant.
gnome reviewers obviously never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Have you read the first paragraph if the lidnked articel? It quotes the criteria right there: "Extensions must not be AI-generated
While it is not prohibited to use AI as a learning aid or a development tool (i.e. code completions), extension developers should be able to justify and explain the code they submit, within reason.
Submissions with large amounts of unnecessary code, inconsistent code style, imaginary API usage, comments serving as LLM prompts, or other indications of AI-generated output will be rejected."
Maybe instead of commenting under every comment that lines this change read the articlw first? Ai is fine if your code is fine and you uderstand it. If the reviewer has to argue with a llm because the submitter just pasts the text into his llm and then posts the output of said llm back to the reviwer it is a huge waste of time. Thiss doesnt happen if the person submitting the code understands it and made shure that the code is fine.
Everyone commenting have read and understood the article. Perhaps the nuance of the conversation is just going over your head. Your commentary is your personal opinion, which is outside of the source material. What you copy+pasted is exactly what we’ve commented on.
The article never said “reviewing Gnome extensions, where LLM was used, is a huge waste of time”. You are adding to what’s said. The adults are not pulling from outside the article.
We are stating what the article lacks. We are not hallucinating. So if we are not hallucinating then you must not be following. Reread it a few times until you get it.
Maybe read the original blog post from the gnome dev then? The post the article references… it says right there why the ai code is a problem, it has to much unnessecery code in it and reviewing that takes time. The author also says the submitted ai code doesnt adhere to good practices.