AI has a deep understanding of how this code works
99 comments
·November 24, 2025benterix
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Mariehane
I think you naturally undergo that course when you are maintainer of a large OSS project.
pjc50
Well, you go one of two ways.
kace91
I honestly reread the whole thread in awe.
Not due to the submitter, as clickbaity as it was, but reading the maintainers and comparing their replies with what I would have written in their place.
That was a masterclass of defending your arguments rationally, with empathy, and leaving negative emotions at the door. I wish I was able to communicate like this.
My only doubt is whether this has a good or bad effect overall, giving that the PR’s author seemed to be having their delusions enabled, if he was genuine.
Would more hostility have been productive? Or is this a good general approach? In any case it is refreshing.
hypeatei
It's clear some people have had their brain broken by the existence of AI. Some maintainers are definitely too nice, and it's infuriating to see their time get wasted by such delusional people.
oliwarner
There are LLMs with more self-awareness than this guy.
Repeatedly using AI to answer questions about the legitimacy of commits from an AI, to people who are clearly skeptical is breathtakingly dense. At least they're open about it.
I did love the ~"I'll help maintain this trash mountain, but I'll need paying". Classy.
sheepscreek
Kudos to the community folks for maintaining their composure and offering constructive criticism. That alone makes me want to contribute something to the OCaml ecosystem - not like this dude of course :)
the_gipsy
Yea that part is the icing on the cake.
pluc
To all the AI apologists here I'd like to submit a simple scenario to you and hear your answer: you use AI to create a keynote speech on a topic you needed to use AI to write. At the end of your speech, people ask you questions about the contents of your speech. What do you say?
This is the same.
j4coh
"Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it."
genewitch
"hey bixby, answer the next question you hear"
paxys
Even if you are okay with AI generated code in the PR, the fact that the community is taking time to engage with the author and asking reasonable questions/offering reasonable feedback and the author is simply copy-pasting walls of AI-generated text in response warrants an instant ban.
If you want to behave like a spam bot don't complain when people treat you like a spam bot.
ptsneves
Sometime ago I had a co-worker do this to me, pasting answers to my questions. He would paste the jira ticket to the ChatGPT(this was GPT3 time) and submit the PR. I would review it and ask questions and the answers had this typical rephrasing and persona of chatgpt. I had no proof, so one day i just used the PR and my comments as a prompt. The answers the co-worker gave me were almost the same down to the word as what ChatGPT gave me. I told my team I would not be available to review his changes anymore and that I would rather just have the ticket outright.
rsynnott
> Here's the AI-written copyright analysis...
Oh, wow. They're being way too tolerant IMO; I'd have just blocked him from the repo at about that point.
fhd2
Their emotional maturity is off the charts, rather impressive.
creata
And then, later in the thread:
> I did ask AI to look at the OxCaml implementation in the beginning.
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fzaninotto
I've closed my share of AI-generated PRs on some OSS repositories I maintain. These contributors seem to jump from one project to another, until their contribution is accepted (recognized ?).
I wonder how long the open-source ecosystem will be able to resist this wave. The burden of reviewing AI-generated PRs is already not sustainable for maintainers, and the number of real open-source contributors is decreasing.
Side note: discovering the discussions in this PR is exactly why I love HN. It's like witnessing the changes in our trade in real time.
inejge
> I wonder how long the open-source ecosystem will be able to resist this wave.
This PR was very successfully resisted: closed and locked without much reviewing. And with a lot of tolerance and patience from the developers, much more than I believe to be fruitful: the "author" is remarkably resistant to argument. So, I think that others can resist in the same way.
raincole
Open-source maintainers will resist this wave even just because they don't want to be mocked on HN/Reddit/their own forums.
It's corporation software that we need to worry about.
the_gipsy
OSS has always pushed back, just because of the maintenance burden in general, and corporate can just "fix it later" because there are literally devs on payroll. Or at least push through and then dump the project, the goal is just completely different, each style works in its context.
But I don't know if corporate software can really "push through" these new amounts of code, without also automating the testing part.
autumnstwilight
>>> Here's my question: why did the files that you submitted name Mark Shinwell as the author?
>>> Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it.
Really sums the whole thing up...
j4coh
After having previously said "AI has a very deep understanding of how this code works. Please challenge me on this."
andai
I thought you were paraphrasing. What in blazes...
greener_grass
Is the real Mark Shinwell on here?
lambda_foo
Pretty much. I guess it’s open source but it’s not in the spirit of open source contribution.
Plus it puts the burden of reviewing the AI slop onto the project maintainers and the future maintenance is not the submitters problem. So you’ve generated lots of code using AI, nice work that’s faster for you but slower for everyone else around you.
skeledrew
Another consideration here that hits both sides at once is that the maintainers on the project are few. So while it could be a great burden pushing generated code on them for review, it also seems a great burden to get new features done in the first place. So it boils down to the choice of dealing with generated code for X feature, or not having X feature for a long time, if ever.
swiftcoder
> or not having X feature for a long time, if ever
Given that the feature is already quite far into development (i.e. the implementation that the LLM copied), it doesn't seem like that is the case here
gexla
Their issue seemed to be the process. They're setup for a certain flow. Jamming that flow breaks it. Wouldn't matter if it were AI or a sudden surge of interested developers. So, it's not a question of accepting or not accepting AI generated code, but rather changing the process. That in itself is time-consuming and carries potential risk.
dudinax
With the understanding that generated code for X may never be mergable given the limited resources.
fxtentacle
"This seems to be largely a copy of the work done in OxCaml by @mshinwell and @spiessimon"
"The webpage credits another author: Native binary debugging for OCaml (written by Claude!) @joelreymont, could you please explain where you obtained the code in this PR?"
That pretty much sums up the experience of coding with LLMs. They are really damn awesome at regurgitating someone else's source code. And they have memorized all of GitHub. But just like how you can get sued for using Mickey Mouse in your advertisements (yes, even if AI drew it), you can get sued for stealing someone else's source code (yes, even if AI wrote it).
neom
Not quite. Mickey Mouse involves trademark protection (and copyright), where unauthorized commercial use of a protected mark can lead to liability regardless of who created the derivative work. Source code copyright infringement requires the copied code to be substantially similar AND protected by copyright. Not all code is copyrightable: ideas, algorithms, and functional elements often aren't protected.
xtracto
This won't be a popular opinion here but, this resistance and skepticism of AI code, and people making it less smells to me very similar to the stance I see from some developers that have this belief that people from other countries CANNOT be as good as them (like, saying that outsourcing or hiring people from developing countries will invariably bring low[er] quality code).
Feels a.but like snobbism and projection of fear that what they do is becoming less valuable. In this case, how DARE a computer progeam write such code!
It's interesting how this is happening. And in the future it will be amazing seeing the turning point when the.machine generated code cannot ne ignored.
Kind of like chess/Go players: First they laughed at a computer playing chess/Go, but now, they just accept that there's NO way they could beat a computer, and keep playing other humans for fun.
nikcub
https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/14369/files#diff-bc37d03...
Found this part hilarious - git ignoring all of the claude planning MD files that it tends to spit out, and including that in the PR
Lazy AI-driven contributions like this are why so many open source maintainers have a negative reaction to any AI-generated code
footy
> AI decided to do so and I didn't question it
in response to someone asking about why the author name doesn't match the contributor's name. Incredible response.
anilgulecha
For the longest time, Linus's dictum "Talk is cheap. Show me the code" held. Now that's fallen! New rules for the new world are needed..
Did these Ocaml maintainers undergo some special course for dealing with difficult people? They show enormous amounts of maturity and patience. I'd just give the offender Torvalds' treatment and block them from the repo, case closed.