The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Recently someone commited a large set of LLM (Large Language Model often wrongly called AI or Artificial Intelligence as at best they are an AI model, or better phrased machine learning model, not even a machine learning reality¹) assistance files to the pixelfed repository. This caused quite some turmoil resulting in pixelfed banning AI generated contributions.

This is for good reason: too many LLM generated commits lack quality control. This results in shoving the burden of the checks from the contributor to the volunteers of the project teams. Those volunteers are already overwhelmed anyway (there is always an applicable XKCD, in this case [Wayback/Archive] 2347: Dependency – explain xkcd).

The offending commit was [Wayback/Archive] Add AI docs · pixelfed/pixelfed@65dff00 · GitHub. The contributor was lazy enough to wrongly name this commit, as these weren’t docs in the sense of documentation, but a set of Claude Skills and other LLM slop².

That behaviour is exemplary for almost all LLM contributions: most humans and systems generating them take them for correct and just commit their content.

I am still not convinced that the main contributor switching within a few days from “oh, let’s add LLM stuff” into “nope, we are not going to allow LLM” vows for a strong soul.

The Pixelfed statement is via [Wayback/Archive] pixelfed: “Pixelfed bans AI generated contributions…” – Mastodon

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

at [Wayback/Archive] pixelfed/README.md at dev · pixelfed/pixelfed · GitHub: AI-generated contributions:

AI-generated contributions are not accepted.

Pull requests, patches, documentation, translations, issues, or other contributions that are substantially generated by generative AI or large language models will not be accepted.

Contributors are expected to understand, author, and take responsibility for the work they submit. Tools such as linters, formatters, autocomplete, spellcheckers, and other non-generative development tools are unaffected by this policy.

These commits are relevant here:

1. [Wayback/Archive] Add AI docs · pixelfed/pixelfed@65dff00 · GitHub
2. [Wayback/Archive] Merge pull request #7451 from pixelfed/staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@a4b4fb3 · GitHub
   

   [Wayback/Archive] Staging by shleeable · Pull Request #7451 · pixelfed/pixelfed

3. [Wayback/Archive] Remove AI Docs · pixelfed/pixelfed@8ebdcc6 · GitHub
4. [Wayback/Archive] Lint · pixelfed/pixelfed@ff2fead · GitHub (unrelated to the LLM shit, but present in one of the merges below – please Dan, do better split your work across merges!)
5. [Wayback/Archive] Update README.md · pixelfed/pixelfed@ebb0edd · GitHub
6. [Wayback/Archive] Merge pull request #7570 from pixelfed/staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@fa474bc · GitHub (which also merges the Lint commit)
   

   [Wayback/Archive] Staging by dansup · Pull Request #7570 · pixelfed/pixelfed

7. [Wayback/Archive] Merge branch ‘dev’ into staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@b23a9c3 · GitHub
8. [Wayback/Archive] Clean up slop · pixelfed/pixelfed@69c8828 · GitHub
9. [Wayback/Archive] Merge branch ‘dev’ into staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@5c285b9 · GitHub
10. [Wayback/Archive] Merge pull request #7571 from pixelfed/staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@7bb3e79 · GitHub
    

    [Wayback/Archive] Clean up slop by dansup · Pull Request #7571 · pixelfed/pixelfed

11. [Wayback/Archive] More slop removal · pixelfed/pixelfed@c53fa3f · GitHub
12. [Wayback/Archive] Merge branch ‘dev’ into staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@c2b57c0 · GitHub
13. Wayback Merge pull request #7572 from pixelfed/staging · pixelfed/pixelfed@955483b · GitHub
    

    [Wayback/Archive] More slop removal by dansup · Pull Request #7572 · pixelfed/pixelfed

Needing so this many commits to undo the LLM slop means the developer does not have a clear mental model of what the earlier commits consist of. Or basically: they have a very bad short term memory, which does not bode well for code quality.

Via [Wayback/Archive] Antimundo: “Pixelfed is now using AI, and …” – Gamedev Mastodon

Pixelfed is now using AI, and I’m stopping recommending Pixelfed to anyone.

https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/commit/65dff00e4fdf06be87e1122420d2ffec1d21f8a7

Update. It seems they’ve changed their mind and reverted the changes: https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed/1173

--jeroen

¹ read for instance this still current Forbes article [Wayback/Archive] Is Machine Learning Really AI?.

² materials for at least these LLM related topics were added:

• Claude (AI) – Wikipedia
• GitHub Copilot – Wikipedia
• Model Context Protocol – Wikipedia
• Pi (AI agent) – Wikipedia
• [Wayback/Archive] Laravel Boost – AI tooling for Laravel, by the Laravel team | Laravel – The clean stack for Artisans and agents