> In my view, adding an LLM as co-author gives you a way for you to shirk responsibility for mistakes – even if a little bit. You can say, oops sorry this happened because it did its thing and it was not careful. And that is exactly the behaviour I want to guard against. If a piece of work is under my name, I own it. Fully.
One of the few aspects of generative AI in coding that to my knowledge has never been controversial is that no matter what, the code's human author is fully responsible for it (even if an LLM actually wrote it). So adding anything about LLMs in a commit message has never been a real way to escape responsibility, even a little bit. Maybe this author's workplace is different, but I kind of doubt it, and even then they're not only talking about their coding at work.
The author goes on to say that they also do want to be transparent about their LLM use, and they suggest some ways to do so...great! On the receiving end of the code, that's all I need. There's nothing sacred about the commit message in my opinion, to make it the one true place to disclose LLM assistance. So ultimately I don't think I have a huge disagreement with the author, just that their justification makes no sense to me. The only time I hear that LLMs supposedly help you evade responsibility is from people trying to avoid disclosing LLM use.
I agree about the aspect about shirking responsibility, but...
>A few years ago I’d never have added Google or StackOverflow as co-authors.
That's not as good of an argument as you think. If you copied entire functions or files wholesale, it would be fair to attribute that, even if you "reviewed" it.
Hi, author here. Yes, I agree and that's precisely what I wrote in the post:
> A few years ago I’d never have added Google or StackOverflow as co-authors. But I would have added a link to post that helped and I’ll continue to do so now.
Right, but how would that work with claude? Do you just add "written by claude" in the commit message? Add "written by claude" in the file header (like a copyright notice)? If you're doing either, is there really any difference between that and the standard "co-authored-by: claude" trailer? Is the whole debate over what "co-authored" means and/or how it shows up on github?
On one hand, LLMs aren’t people and attributing code to them is incorrect.
On the other, what they output is ultimately a (complicated) modification of the training data they’ve ingested, so people should made sure to attribute any code that’s been generated using an LLM trained on BSD sources appropriately.
im concerned it ever caught on at all. not only is it free advertising that devalues your work in the eyes of some, but also indicates you let a harness write to git in the first place
No it doesn't? I've written commit messages ending with 'Co-authored-by [Claude]' a few times, in acknowledgement that it was largely 'vibed' and I only reviewed and committed it. I've never had Claude Code run `git commit`.
the models now commit because they think it is what we want, they are "relentlessly proactive" as simonw puts it, I now have to have instructions so they do not commit and push
I immediately prohibited Claude and other agents from adding themselves as co-authors. I have never liked this.
I take responsibility when I am driving the AI. I wouldn't call my vehicle the "co-driver," even in cruise control (or these days, self-driving mode). Yes, it's doing a ton of work for me, but it is still just a tool.
I do think it's useful to log what model was used, but not as "co-author."
Exception: if a cloud agent designs and authors a commit autonomously, then it can be the "author," if only because I want it to be clear that my hands weren't on the wheel.
Hi, author here. On the contrary I'm trying to go in a direction where AI usage is declared as a disclaimer in the project's README or similar. For work, it doesn't really matter because everyone's doing it and your usage stats are visible by admins. Here's what I wrote in the closing sentences in the post:
> What about attributions and disclaimers for AI generated work? If you’re concerned being transparent to anyone seeing your work, either create an AI specific account that commits with your name or add a big disclaimer to your project’s readme that this is AI slop and there be dragons.
I agree with you as it is rightly put as you say. The thing is that the proprietary generated code is marked anyway, so you want it or not, even as a paid customer you don´t get to choose that.
The big question is: Is all the "AI" generated content infected or just marked?
That hardly strikes me as "gospel about their saviors" to me. Not to mention at least in my circles that statement is approximately true, even at a company that hasn't gone full AI-crazy (eg. with unlimited token spend and AI use leaderboards).
I think it happened when it solved one of those Erdős problems, while also knowing everything there is to know about birds, mitochondria, history of Uganda, etc.
Even my most contrarian friends have a hard time justifying coding by hand. To say it slopaganda style; That’s not a cult, that’s common sense.
Everything you described applies to human written code, especially ones you're randomly copy pasting from the internet. Maybe if the stackoverflow answer you're copying from is popular enough that people will catch it, but otherwise you'd probably have better luck asking AI to review it.
> In my view, adding an LLM as co-author gives you a way for you to shirk responsibility for mistakes – even if a little bit. You can say, oops sorry this happened because it did its thing and it was not careful. And that is exactly the behaviour I want to guard against. If a piece of work is under my name, I own it. Fully.
One of the few aspects of generative AI in coding that to my knowledge has never been controversial is that no matter what, the code's human author is fully responsible for it (even if an LLM actually wrote it). So adding anything about LLMs in a commit message has never been a real way to escape responsibility, even a little bit. Maybe this author's workplace is different, but I kind of doubt it, and even then they're not only talking about their coding at work.
The author goes on to say that they also do want to be transparent about their LLM use, and they suggest some ways to do so...great! On the receiving end of the code, that's all I need. There's nothing sacred about the commit message in my opinion, to make it the one true place to disclose LLM assistance. So ultimately I don't think I have a huge disagreement with the author, just that their justification makes no sense to me. The only time I hear that LLMs supposedly help you evade responsibility is from people trying to avoid disclosing LLM use.
I agree about the aspect about shirking responsibility, but...
>A few years ago I’d never have added Google or StackOverflow as co-authors.
That's not as good of an argument as you think. If you copied entire functions or files wholesale, it would be fair to attribute that, even if you "reviewed" it.
Hi, author here. Yes, I agree and that's precisely what I wrote in the post:
> A few years ago I’d never have added Google or StackOverflow as co-authors. But I would have added a link to post that helped and I’ll continue to do so now.
Right, but how would that work with claude? Do you just add "written by claude" in the commit message? Add "written by claude" in the file header (like a copyright notice)? If you're doing either, is there really any difference between that and the standard "co-authored-by: claude" trailer? Is the whole debate over what "co-authored" means and/or how it shows up on github?
Attribution as a "source" I would agree, and I used to put stack overflow links in my docstrings/comments for reference.
But I would not ever call the StackOverflow user a "co-author" on my commits.
I think that distinction matters.
we once fired a guy for not including link/attrbution to copy/paste SO function
On one hand, LLMs aren’t people and attributing code to them is incorrect.
On the other, what they output is ultimately a (complicated) modification of the training data they’ve ingested, so people should made sure to attribute any code that’s been generated using an LLM trained on BSD sources appropriately.
Agreed - we need a different designation than "co-author."
I recall the Linux kernel uses "Assisted-by" lines or something like that, which sounds about right.
im concerned it ever caught on at all. not only is it free advertising that devalues your work in the eyes of some, but also indicates you let a harness write to git in the first place
I'm not sure who did it first (CoPilot maybe?), but for me it was Claude Code that started putting its name on everything.
Advertising seems like the main reason, and maybe trying to over-anthropomorphize the tools.
No it doesn't? I've written commit messages ending with 'Co-authored-by [Claude]' a few times, in acknowledgement that it was largely 'vibed' and I only reviewed and committed it. I've never had Claude Code run `git commit`.
the models now commit because they think it is what we want, they are "relentlessly proactive" as simonw puts it, I now have to have instructions so they do not commit and push
Therefore it’s only fair that some kind of disclaimer is shown somewhere
I immediately prohibited Claude and other agents from adding themselves as co-authors. I have never liked this.
I take responsibility when I am driving the AI. I wouldn't call my vehicle the "co-driver," even in cruise control (or these days, self-driving mode). Yes, it's doing a ton of work for me, but it is still just a tool.
I do think it's useful to log what model was used, but not as "co-author."
Exception: if a cloud agent designs and authors a commit autonomously, then it can be the "author," if only because I want it to be clear that my hands weren't on the wheel.
The problem is that LLM users are extremely unlikely to check all their output with enough care.
If you do it they're likely to end up slowing you down, instead of being a help.
If you assume full responsibility for your usage of AI, don't try to hide it!
Commits signed by Claude are a good and very visible indicator of what to expect from an open source project.
> A carpenter may sign their work. But they don’t add the name of the saw they used to cut wood, do they
Saws are unlikely to lie about what they've done, and don't decide what to do autonomously.
If we'll get saws that do that, I'll very much want to know if a carpenter working on my home used them.
> However, now it’s obvious and even expected that using LLMs is the way forward
Good to know that it's obvious for you.
The author is making up a pretext to hide their use of LLMs.
Hi, author here. On the contrary I'm trying to go in a direction where AI usage is declared as a disclaimer in the project's README or similar. For work, it doesn't really matter because everyone's doing it and your usage stats are visible by admins. Here's what I wrote in the closing sentences in the post:
> What about attributions and disclaimers for AI generated work? If you’re concerned being transparent to anyone seeing your work, either create an AI specific account that commits with your name or add a big disclaimer to your project’s readme that this is AI slop and there be dragons.
Hope that helps clarify my stance. :)
I should barely be listed as a co-author on what Claude does for me. Hiding Claude's contribution feels about as true as a combover to me.
I agree with you as it is rightly put as you say. The thing is that the proprietary generated code is marked anyway, so you want it or not, even as a paid customer you don´t get to choose that. The big question is: Is all the "AI" generated content infected or just marked?
The trouble with AI attribution is that there are basically three categories:
1. 100% human 0% AI.
2. 100% AI, 0% human.
3. Everything in between.
1 and 2 are easy enough, but in 3 the human effort is not clearly legible or even measurable.
i kind of disagree. people do credit the tools they use. in movies for example. not always, but it happens. so why not with software too?
> you have to use it at work unless you want to go out the door
Why people are so compelled to gospel about their saviors to others? Why tech became a cult?
Did you read the subsequent sentence?
>Side projects is completely upto you
That hardly strikes me as "gospel about their saviors" to me. Not to mention at least in my circles that statement is approximately true, even at a company that hasn't gone full AI-crazy (eg. with unlimited token spend and AI use leaderboards).
I think it happened when it solved one of those Erdős problems, while also knowing everything there is to know about birds, mitochondria, history of Uganda, etc.
Even my most contrarian friends have a hard time justifying coding by hand. To say it slopaganda style; That’s not a cult, that’s common sense.
How about all the times it confidently states made up stuff, and writes horribly insecure code?
That's not common sense, that's bs.
Everything you described applies to human written code, especially ones you're randomly copy pasting from the internet. Maybe if the stackoverflow answer you're copying from is popular enough that people will catch it, but otherwise you'd probably have better luck asking AI to review it.
related/front of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49498201
Omg that is brave af! I am literally shaking rn like on the verge of crying god bless you fr
This is the way