Debian has voted to not reject use of AI for contributions to the distribution. I've seen people blaming the voting system, political centrism, or 'being tricked' by AI-written proposals to rectify this result. I will instead blame the voters, the Debian Developers themselves, for the outcome: There simply was no majority to reject genAI contributions, and likewise no interest in regulating it. >>
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@leah Welp, I won't let this change my opinions of the ethics of the Debian community. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to-stop-shipping-xscreensaver/
@jwz @leah Your quote from 2016 reads like it was written today. #debian #llm ”I guess you want Debian to be the kind of operation that uses the work of others while blatantly and explicitly ignoring the wishes of the person who *did the actual creative work*.” https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819703#168
@leah I don't know enough about their voting process to judge this. Particularly, how the presence of misleading alternatives affects the outcome under whatever system they use. (Arrow's Theorem nerd stuff.)
However, in spite how the winning proposal tries to weasel around the issue, not rejecting AI is an endorsement for use in the distribution (as easily can be seen in the uncriticized use of AI to a) write the proposal, b) submit patches to the voting software and c) analyzing the vote results with a script.).
@leah As a debian developer, this is correct. The results of this vote is shameful, even if some devs essentially voted for it as a "don't come to any decisions right now" option.
