Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: relax policy on AI-generated contributions

["Alex Bennée" <alex.bennee@linaro.org>]

Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:

> Until now QEMU's code provenance policy declined any contribution
> believed to include or derive from AI-generated content.  A blanket ban
> was easy to maintain while LLM output was rarely usable on its own, but
> as the tools improved an absolute prohibition has become harder to
> justify and enforce.
<snip>
> +LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +Use of generative AI can be classified in the following four buckets:
> +
> +- "background" assistance, such as completion and code review.  This does
> +  not need disclosure.
> +
> +- small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of code)
> +  are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple parts
> +  is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent posting
> +  of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
> +
> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---test cases,
> +  adaptations of existing code, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to
> +  help performing mechanical changes, etc.  These are generally allowed;
> +  disclosure is highly recommended for non-trivial, functional code.

Personally I'm happy with the next bit but if there is still
disagreement about the wording could we merged the policy updates up to
this point and defer larger contributions until we see what the
practical effects are on the list?

> +- large, heavily LLM-assisted contributions where LLMs write large parts
> +  of functional code.  These are only allowed if *pre-arranged*,
> +  *high-quality* and *well-tested*.
> +
> +The last case (*"LLM-created contribution"*) is the one that requires
> +a more careful approach.  In particular:
> +
> +- "Pre-arranged" means that a maintainer has communicated ahead of time,
> +  for example on `IRC or the QEMU mailing
> +  list <https://www.qemu.org/contribute/>`__, that they are willing
> +  to review an LLM-created contribution.
> +
> +- "High-quality" means that the contributor must apply the same judgment
> +  that would be applied to other code changes.  Contributors must invest
> +  substantial time reviewing their contributions, curating them, and
> +  understanding them in depth.
> +
> +- "Well-tested" means the LLM-created contributions will be held to a
> +  higher standard than human-created ones, because LLMs make it easier
> +  to write tests.  There are no exceptions for "writing the tests seems
> +  hard" or for `yak shaving <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>`__.
> +
> +.. note::
> +    Pre-arrangement ensures maintainers have bandwidth for review before a
> +    contributor invests effort in creating a large change.  This is not
> +    a new concept in QEMU: maintainers have always encouraged early
> +    alignment on mailing lists or IRC prior to major architecture or
> +    subsystem refactoring.
> +
> +    Maintainers have freedom to determine what constitutes "high quality".
> +    Because LLMs lower the cost of patch generation, maintainers may demand
> +    significantly larger revisions than for purely human-written code.
<snip>

But for my part have a:

Reviewed-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>

-- 
Alex Bennée
Virtualisation Tech Lead @ Linaro