[Suggestion] Impliment an anti-AI policy?

[Suggestion] Impliment an anti-AI policy?

[GitHub issues - opened]

alsa-project/alsa-lib issue #530 was opened from cloudskater:

Hi! I wanted to ask about the possibility of banning AI use from ALSA's codebase due to a myriad of issues it creates, withing the FOSS space and far beyond it. Such problems are inherent to modern-day "AI" and its only continuing to damage the people around us and the world in which we all live. As someone who uses Linux and ALSA almost every day, it would be very reassuring to see such an essential pillar of Linux audio take a firm stance against this harmful tech with continually worsening consequences.

Those consequences include:

## Environmental Impact

To start learning a bit more, you can check out the Wikipedia page on the [environmental impact of artificial intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_artificial_intelligence#Individual_level). Here's some more specific sources:

- [MIT News: Generative AI's environmental impact](https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117)

- [MIT Technology Review: We did the math on AI's energy footprint. Here's the story you haven't heard.](https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/)

## Effect on Hardware Prices

The demand for construction and outfitting of new data-centers to host AI/LLM compute capacity has overwhelmed global supply and production of multiple hardware components. Memory, Storage, and GPUs have seen massive increases in price for both consumer and enterprise models, upwards of 400% in some cases.

The lack of supply has led large system-builders to purchase production capacity from OEMs well in advance of delivery, leading some manufacturers to end consumer-oriented product lines in favor of enterprise capacity.

The downstream effects for consumers is that nearly all electronic devices which contain memory and storage will see their prices rise and availability decline. Those who already own existing electronics and computer hardware components may also find themselves unable to have their devices repaired or replaced under warranty.

- [The RAM shortage is coming for everything you care about](https://www.theverge.com/tech/880812/ramageddon-ram-shortage-memory-crisis-price-2026-phones-laptops)

- [Western Digital is already sold out of hard drives for all of 2026 — chief says some long-term agreements for 2027 and 2028 already in place](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/western-digital-is-already-sold-out-of-hard-drives-for-all-of-2026-chief-says-some-long-term-agreements-for-2027-and-2028-already-in-place)

- [The 2026 storage crisis: Why AI data centers are hoarding every hard drive on the market](https://www.howtogeek.com/dont-count-on-hdds-to-save-you-from-rising-storage-costs/)

This has resulted in pricing historically marginalized individuals, who are more likely to have less financial resources, out of learning about computers at home and shrinking the diversity of the computing and programming industry.

## Ties to the War Industry

A lot of AI companies also work directly with nation states for use in their  War Departments, which in turn leads to further AI usage during war and invasions. This is coupled with [NYT: Palantir, Anthropic and small start-ups are generating rewards from their investments in defense tech](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/technology/silicon-valley-war-defense-tech.html).

As another example [NPR: OpenAI announced Pentagon deal after Trump banned Anthropic](https://www.npr.org/2026/02/27/nx-s1-5729118/trump-anthropic-pentagon-openai-ai-weapons-ban) which was due to the USA Department of War [launching an AI acceleration strategy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260113071131/https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai/).

Due to the nature of LLMs being only kind of as good as the data they are trained on, this can lead to additional civilian deaths and housing/infrastructure damage either intentionally or not. Examples:

<details>
  <summary>Content Warning: War details, death</summary>

  - [Gaza: UN experts deplore use of purported AI to commit ‘domicide’ in Gaza, call for reparative approach to rebuilding](https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/gaza-un-experts-deplore-use-purported-ai-commit-domicide-gaza-call)
  - [Lavender & Where’s Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists & Bomb Palestinians in Their Homes](https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/5/israel_ai)
  - [Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war](https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-israel-military-gaza-hamas-artificial-intelligence-20b2adb438b39ee9cb6eb2f52c1ae44a)
  - [Google has dropped its promise not to use AI for weapons](https://theconversation.com/google-has-dropped-its-promise-not-to-use-ai-for-weapons-its-part-of-a-troubling-trend-249169)
  - ["We want to use it for everything": How Project Maven became central to America’s AI-powered warfare](https://web.archive.org/web/20260312035736/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/project-maven-ai-us-airstrike-iraq-anthropic-b2929138.html)

</details>

## What You Can Do

I'd like to kindly suggest implementing a strict "No AI" policy. This can also help with what seems to be larger and larger influxes of low quality drive-by PRs by AI agents.

You can find other projects that have taken steps to say no to AI here:
https://noai.starlightnet.work/list.html

For a specific policy, I can recommend the following policies for inspiration:

- [wafrn's Contributring Doc](https://codeberg.org/wafrn/wafrn/src/branch/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

- [Loupe's Use of Generative AI Policy](https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327)

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it and hope that we can build a more humane and thoughtful future for FOSS together. Kind regards,

cloudskater

Issue URL     : https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib/issues/530
Repository URL: https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib

[Suggestion] Impliment an anti-AI policy?

[GitHub issues - edited]

alsa-project/alsa-lib issue #530 was edited from cloudskater:

Hi! I wanted to ask about the possibility of banning AI use from ALSA's codebase due to a myriad of issues it creates, within the FOSS space and far beyond it. Such problems are inherent to modern-day "AI" and its only continuing to damage the people around us and the world in which we all live. As someone who uses Linux and ALSA almost every day, it would be very reassuring to see such an essential pillar of Linux audio take a firm stance against this harmful tech with continually worsening consequences.

Those consequences include:

## Environmental Impact

To start learning a bit more, you can check out the Wikipedia page on the [environmental impact of artificial intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_artificial_intelligence#Individual_level). Here's some more specific sources:

- [MIT News: Generative AI's environmental impact](https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117)

- [MIT Technology Review: We did the math on AI's energy footprint. Here's the story you haven't heard.](https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/)

## Effect on Hardware Prices

The demand for construction and outfitting of new data-centers to host AI/LLM compute capacity has overwhelmed global supply and production of multiple hardware components. Memory, Storage, and GPUs have seen massive increases in price for both consumer and enterprise models, upwards of 400% in some cases.

The lack of supply has led large system-builders to purchase production capacity from OEMs well in advance of delivery, leading some manufacturers to end consumer-oriented product lines in favor of enterprise capacity.

The downstream effects for consumers is that nearly all electronic devices which contain memory and storage will see their prices rise and availability decline. Those who already own existing electronics and computer hardware components may also find themselves unable to have their devices repaired or replaced under warranty.

- [The RAM shortage is coming for everything you care about](https://www.theverge.com/tech/880812/ramageddon-ram-shortage-memory-crisis-price-2026-phones-laptops)

- [Western Digital is already sold out of hard drives for all of 2026 — chief says some long-term agreements for 2027 and 2028 already in place](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/western-digital-is-already-sold-out-of-hard-drives-for-all-of-2026-chief-says-some-long-term-agreements-for-2027-and-2028-already-in-place)

- [The 2026 storage crisis: Why AI data centers are hoarding every hard drive on the market](https://www.howtogeek.com/dont-count-on-hdds-to-save-you-from-rising-storage-costs/)

This has resulted in pricing historically marginalized individuals, who are more likely to have less financial resources, out of learning about computers at home and shrinking the diversity of the computing and programming industry.

## Ties to the War Industry

A lot of AI companies also work directly with nation states for use in their  War Departments, which in turn leads to further AI usage during war and invasions. This is coupled with [NYT: Palantir, Anthropic and small start-ups are generating rewards from their investments in defense tech](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/technology/silicon-valley-war-defense-tech.html).

As another example [NPR: OpenAI announced Pentagon deal after Trump banned Anthropic](https://www.npr.org/2026/02/27/nx-s1-5729118/trump-anthropic-pentagon-openai-ai-weapons-ban) which was due to the USA Department of War [launching an AI acceleration strategy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260113071131/https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai/).

Due to the nature of LLMs being only kind of as good as the data they are trained on, this can lead to additional civilian deaths and housing/infrastructure damage either intentionally or not. Examples:

<details>
  <summary>Content Warning: War details, death</summary>

  - [Gaza: UN experts deplore use of purported AI to commit ‘domicide’ in Gaza, call for reparative approach to rebuilding](https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/gaza-un-experts-deplore-use-purported-ai-commit-domicide-gaza-call)
  - [Lavender & Where’s Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists & Bomb Palestinians in Their Homes](https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/5/israel_ai)
  - [Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war](https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-israel-military-gaza-hamas-artificial-intelligence-20b2adb438b39ee9cb6eb2f52c1ae44a)
  - [Google has dropped its promise not to use AI for weapons](https://theconversation.com/google-has-dropped-its-promise-not-to-use-ai-for-weapons-its-part-of-a-troubling-trend-249169)
  - ["We want to use it for everything": How Project Maven became central to America’s AI-powered warfare](https://web.archive.org/web/20260312035736/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/project-maven-ai-us-airstrike-iraq-anthropic-b2929138.html)

</details>

## What You Can Do

I'd like to kindly suggest implementing a strict "No AI" policy. This can also help with what seems to be larger and larger influxes of low quality drive-by PRs by AI agents.

You can find other projects that have taken steps to say no to AI here:
https://noai.starlightnet.work/list.html

For a specific policy, I can recommend the following policies for inspiration:

- [wafrn's Contributring Doc](https://codeberg.org/wafrn/wafrn/src/branch/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

- [Loupe's Use of Generative AI Policy](https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327)

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it and hope that we can build a more humane and thoughtful future for FOSS together. Kind regards,

cloudskater

Issue URL     : https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib/issues/530
Repository URL: https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib