Thread (60 messages) 60 messages, 6 authors, 2026-03-29

[PATCH v9] CONTRIBUTING.d/ai: Add guidelines banning AI for contributing

From: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
Date: 2025-11-10 14:36:08
Subsystem: the rest · Maintainer: Linus Torvalds

This policy is based on the Gentoo policy (see link below).
However, I've modified our text to be more restrictive.

Cc: Carlos O'Donell <redacted>
Cc: Collin Funk <redacted>
Cc: Sam James <redacted>
Cc: "G. Branden Robinson" <redacted>
Link: <https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
---
 CONTRIBUTING.d/ai | 63 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 63 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 CONTRIBUTING.d/ai
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.d/ai b/CONTRIBUTING.d/ai
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..91d767785
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.d/ai
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+Name
+	AI - artificial intelligence policy
+
+Description
+	It is expressly forbidden to contribute to this project any
+	content that has been created or derived with the assistance of
+	AI tools.
+
+	This includes AI assistive tools used in the contributing
+	process, even if such tools do not directly generate the
+	contributed code but are used to derive the contribution.  For
+	example, AI linters, AI static analyzers, and AI tools that
+	summarize input are forbidden.
+
+    Exceptions
+	As an exception to the above, AI assistive tools which don't
+	have any influence on the contribution other than enabling the
+	contributor to work with their computer (e.g., screen reader,
+	text to speech) --where the contributor verifies the output to
+	the best of their ability-- are allowed, and the contributor
+	need not disclose their use.
+
+    Concerns
+	Copyright concerns.
+		At this point, the regulations concerning copyright of
+		generated contents are still emerging worldwide.  Using
+		such material could pose a danger of copyright
+		violations, but it could also weaken claims to copyright
+		and void the guarantees given by copyleft licensing.
+
+	Quality concerns.
+		Popular LLMs are really great at generating plausibly
+		looking, but meaningless content.  They pose both the
+		risk of lowering the quality of a project, and of
+		requiring an unfair human effort from contributors and
+		maintainers to review contributions and detect the
+		mistakes resulting from the use of AI.
+
+	Ethical concerns.
+		The business side of AI boom is creating serious ethical
+		concerns.  Among them:
+
+		-  Commercial AI projects are frequently indulging in
+		   blatant copyright violations to train their models.
+		-  Their operations are causing concerns about the huge
+		   use of energy, water, and other natural resources.
+		-  The advertising and use of AI models has caused
+		   a significant harm to employees and reduction of
+		   service quality.
+		-  LLMs have been empowering all kinds of spam and scam
+		   efforts.
+
+Caveats
+	This policy can be revisited, should a case been made over such
+	a tool that does not pose copyright, quality, or ethical
+	concerns.
+
+Copyright
+	Text derived from --but different than-- the Gentoo project
+	AI policy
+	<https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy>.
+
+	SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0
Range-diff against v8:
1:  b40a7c44c ! 1:  999614b18 CONTRIBUTING.d/ai: Add guidelines banning AI for contributing
    @@ CONTRIBUTING.d/ai (new)
     +
     +Description
     +	It is expressly forbidden to contribute to this project any
    -+	content that has been created with the assistance of AI tools.
    ++	content that has been created or derived with the assistance of
    ++	AI tools.
     +
    -+	This also includes AI assistive tools used in the contributing
    -+	process, even if such tools do not generate the contributed
    -+	code.  For example, AI linters, AI static analyzers, and AI
    -+	tools that summarize input are forbidden.
    -+
    -+	If for some reason, a contributor receives information from an
    -+	AI tool unintentionally, it should actively try to not use that
    -+	information, and should also disclose the incident when
    -+	contributing.
    ++	This includes AI assistive tools used in the contributing
    ++	process, even if such tools do not directly generate the
    ++	contributed code but are used to derive the contribution.  For
    ++	example, AI linters, AI static analyzers, and AI tools that
    ++	summarize input are forbidden.
     +
     +    Exceptions
     +	As an exception to the above, AI assistive tools which don't

base-commit: afdd0a64c5bad49d6030ddc488951aeb50f0b88e
-- 
2.51.0
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