Pixelfed bans AI generated contributions.
We heard you! We are not accepting any AI or agentic code contributions, and will keep building Pixelfed by hand.
Thank you for your feedback!
https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed#ai-generated-contributions
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@pixelfed I wonder, does this apply to security vulnerabilities as well, what happens if someone uses an LLM and finds a genuine vulnerability, is it just gonna get ignored because it comes from an LLM, the models are actually good at this...
@rebootl If they report a legit vulnerability, we can work on our own fix (and code) and wouldn't be an issue.
@pixelfed Yes! Let's not use power tools to build a house! Because why would we!
@pixelfed Dank maar volgens mij zijn er nog veel bugs. Gelukkig hou ik wat echt belangrijk is en er toe doet in eigen bewaring.
@pixelfed thanks, I was this 🤏 close to consider phasing out a Pixelfed instance if it the software became slopware.
@pixelfed Any Business that rejects Ai Im automatically a fan of !
A clear contribution policy saves maintainers from reviewing work they cannot safely merge. It also tells newcomers exactly where human judgment still matters.
@pixelfed even though there is a stronger consensus that using AI will degrade the project quality in the long term, I personally feel like we have to find middle ground. Completely abandoning AI will slow down progress. I see so many pain points in using the #pixelfed app itself. I feel, goal should be to make OSS genuine alternative to private software and taking AI's help, will help us achieve it. But doing a complete vibe coding is a no no. Tools like auto completion are really helpful tools
@pixelfed that's great news! even in a time where vibe coding or contributions related to it are becoming more and more common even though i don't think vibe coding should be like that or should even be a thing at most but regardless that's still great news
@pixelfed well that’s dumb. Since when do users dictate anything?
@pixelfed You will thank your earlier self when you have to go back and edit code in the future.
@pixelfed a step towards the right direction
@pixelfed
Great. Now unban my @LargeGiraffe account.
@pixelfed Actually banning agentic contributions isn't really a good idea, as people can actually achieve good quality with coding agents.
@alexchapman Do you do programming? Or are you like the ai bros insisting ai slop is art? @cinebox @pixelfed
@sackofbones There's no such thing as AI slop in programming unless you mean those idiots who one shot everything. @cinebox @pixelfed
@sackofbones I answered it dumb fuck! @cinebox @pixelfed
Please stop spamming my notifications with this pointless back and forth.. I don't think you're ready to have this conversation
@cuirass_entertainment Oh I've had it, and its clear people are too full of themselves to even see both sides of it. @pixelfed
@alexchapman We are here because we're happy that a project listened to their user base and decided to no longer allow AI generated code. Why, exactly, are you here?
@chadmccullough Because if it were not for a few dozen anti-AI people, the dev would not have done that. And to put it into context, there's thousands of Pixelfed users, and a few dozen, maybe a couple hundred at most, are part of this anti-AI nonsense, so quite a minority. @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman So, how do you know how many Pixelfed users wanted the project to stop using AI?
Being anti-AI is not nonsense. Its use is full of ethical issues that people like you don't seem to give a shit about, but many people just like me do give a shit about.
@chadmccullough That's your view, but more people either don't give a damn or also think that AI has its uses. @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman Listen, use or don't use it. I don't really care. I choose not to use it or support it any way. If you want to support it, then support it. But you really need to do a better job of knowing when and where to defend your use of it. This is not the place.
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
alex i glanced at your profile
you're blind?
you're not the first blind person i've met who defends AI
and i understand it. it must be such a boon for those with vision impairments
is it this that drives your position?
i think AI, if done ethically, can be a great benefit for people with disabilities
but alex, you have to understand: pushing the current AI manifestation *in general* is not the same issue. be more nuanced
@benroyce That and also that me and my other friends and even people that I know through Blind Information Technology Solutions (BITS) struggle to code by hand and thus AI helps us get good quality code done and thus we are making accessible programs. Also we're not just one shot prompting everything, some of our stuff we've worked on for weeks and some repos have like hundreds of tests, and not just that, we test things to make sure everything is perfect, and if something's off, we go back to the Claude window and tell it what's wrong, and what's missing or what it needs to do, even researching documentation for the NVDA screen reader and libraries that help programs interact with the screen reader APIs, and it does really well because we take the time to make it work. @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
that's wonderful
a suggestion for you:
do not champion AI
champion AI for people with disabilities
if you champion AI in general, you're going to be met with venom. because, in general, AI is terrible
just last week i got in a similar argument:
https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/117322597908342619
the blind guy wound up agreeing with me by the end of the back and forth
it's about nuance: bad in general, good in niches
alex: just voice the nuance
@benroyce Yeah, and that's why devs outright banning AI/agentic code contributions is not a good thing because people like me and those in BITS that would want to contribute accessibility fixes, because yes blind people can access visual apps like Pixelfed and obviously Instagram, because of alt text and the audio in videos, and Loops has an alt text feature for videos, but for example I wanted to fix the top bar icons in the Loops app, where it wouldn't say back on some screens but just select with VoiceOver and nothing would be said, I hope that's fixed in the next update, but if AI contributions weren't banned, I could literally describe what the issues is, explain to the AI that it needs to add an accessibility label for that icon, and it would go and do that, then I could test it, commit and push, then do a PR. People need to see those uses rather than going AI bad, AI banned. Yeah there's some disadvantages, like people who will one shot prompt something and submit it claiming to fix something and all they've done is made it worse or added unneeded nonsense, and also the whole debacle with datacenters, but people need to see the positives, like how its allowing blind people and those with cognitive disabilities that mean the traditional coding process is extremely difficult or impossible, to make cool things and fix issues in other places. @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
but alex do you see how if you led with this angle instead of defending AI *in general* you would have a nicer time here?
because you have a point
AI *in general* fucking sucks
i don't know the answer for people with disabilities. but it has to be something that doesn't feed a dehumanizing theft machine
the problem is the corporations. they are ruining AI
running protein folding or cosmology simulations is not the problem
@benroyce I tried and some people threw the oh you're using disability to defend AI BS at me, so I came back at them, and they didn't like it. @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
in another thread? because i don't see that here
i understand the psychology of that. you don't want to cite the people with disabilities angle because then it gets personal, and that hurts
but if you remove that angle, you wind up defending something that, objectively, is terrible
i admit AI helps blind people
now you have to admit AI sucks in general
or... you get all this disgust dumped on you. that's a hard road man
@benroyce Yeah I just think people need to calm down on the hate, yeah the way AI is ran isn't good but holy hell people are taking their disgust too far. @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
the fediverse is full of programmers who resent the dehumanization and mediocrity that AI at their jobs has created. this is a different experience than yours. the fediverse allows them to dump their frustrations. so when you come here and defend AI *in general* you're just setting yourself up for a drama wave of attacks
but i also understand if you say it's good for blind people it's hurtful to get clapback
i don't know man
@benroyce I'm not the only one who defends AI, there's a whole load of us blind people on the Fediverse that defend the positive aspects of AI, and all of us should be able to do that without getting hate for it. Just ask the BITS people, or any of the people I've boosted that talk about the amazing things they've been able to accomplish thanks to the rise of coding agents. @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
@alexchapman @chadmccullough @cuirass_entertainment @pixelfed
i'm not going to attack you (although i started out above mocking you before i glanced at your profile and remembered the other blind person i got in this argument with, sorry for that)
but i am going to continue to attack AI
i am not an omnipotent being, and i don't know the solution. but i do know the solution should probably be something like local AI rather than feeding vile corporations. they are turning AI into a monster
@pixelfed
cue the sloppers in 3 ... 2... 1...