On 8 July 2026 00:00:38 CEST, Kevin Smith via Standards <standards@xmpp.org> wrote:
On 7 Jul 2026, at 22:48, Ralph Meijer <ralphm@ik.nu> wrote:
But again, I do not understand why you are making a distinction between a contribution by a human, and a contribution by a human that uses AI. In either case I expect a certain level of quality and if the output is "slop", then the human driving the AI tools is to blame. Or their own bad writing.
While everything you say is true at face value, I think a number of people have seen an increase in low-effort low-quality high-magnitude contributions elsewhere because of the use of agents allowing producing significantly sized bodies of work that take a great deal of effort to review or repute, while having cost the person triggering the submission little to no effort. Daniel has made the (I think reasonable) point that he’s unlikely to be able to keep on as Editor if that role becomes having to process an increasing number of low-quality but not low-effort-to-deal-with submissions, and I think the onward effort of Council would also be prohibitive if such a situation were to arise. It’s a matter of opinion whether we’ll see that happen in the XSF, but I am confident similar things are happening elsewhere. We do, as you say, have a process that should prohibit unsuitable XEPs being published, but the effort required to drive that process may well increase - you would be right to assert that people could submit all the same things an agent could, by hand-crafting them, and the quality could be similarly low, but the barrier of effort to do that is much higher and we’ve not traditionally seen an issue with it (I also suspect that use of agents leads to an inflated confidence in the submitted content, but that’s just speculation) - and reading the GSoC mentor list this year has been particularly depressing with the tales of what it’s been like for everyone. Even within the XSF I have already watched some PRs go by that have been clearly (to me) agent-driven, and have felt draining to read.
Yes, this is a problem. Not even hypothetically. Can we formulate criteria that make it easier to triage? If something is "clearly agent-driven", I am fine with a quick "nope, try again" without reading the whole thing. But can we be more specific, objective? Does declaring the use of AI disqualify? How much or what type of use of AI? What if all future contributions, including subjectively great ones, declare so? Also, how does one prove _not_ having used AI?
I do not have answers, I am not inherently anti-AI, and I do not believe that forbidding use of agents would be the best course, but I can also see how concerns in this area could be very reasonable, and that a desire to ‘do something’ following from that would also be reasonable
I am actually quite skeptical about AI, its limitations as well as its promise. In particular I am wary about how people use it, and how they trust the outcome. I also understand there's an inherent need to deal with a new reality. However, "doing something" has to be meaningful. I don't think we can ban the use of AI in practice. I suspect that proper use of AI becomes harder and harder to distinguish from traditionally written contributions. If we do continue to allow it, what is the effect of declaring the use of AI on our processes? Should it cause a different treatment of the contribution? How? I think we need to put this squarely on the author. Only submit stuff you have properly proofread. You cannot hide behind AI. It is your work. Don't put in patent-encumbered work, don't copy stuff unless allowed, don't send in slop. If that requires some additional words in our author guidelines, please suggest some (or use the ones in my other mail). ralphm