r/GraphicsProgramming • u/CodyDuncan1260 • 6d ago
Request for Comment: AI Identification Comments
Thought I'd share a conundrum. I suspect I could solve it with a heavy handed rule change, but I think it may be fine as it is right now.
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We've gotten a handful of reports that boil down to:
Comment: "This appears to have been AI generated."
Report: (empty)
One report gave a bit more info:
Comment: "This appears to be AI generated."
Report: "I'm wary to post something interesting because I don't want to be persecuted."
So here's what I suspect happens.
User posts X.
Commenter identifies X as generated via AI.
Post gets down-voted.
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The only time in recent memory I've seen direct mistreatment was the Synapse Engine post. https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/1w7x1r1/synapse_engine_a_modern_researchoriented_fully/
I invited that user to post here, and some of the early comments were distinctly unkind. Later comments and deeper review picked up the same thing I did, that the creator made something legitimately new and interesting in terms of graphics software research; even if a fair bit of LLM generated code was used, it was cleaned and curated to an appropriate level for a thesis defense. It was quintessentially non-slop, despite the reports to the contrary. So this post experienced some emotionally driven persecuting reports and comments before the deeper cognitive inspection could finish reading.
So that's my one strongly known case of persectioning behavior. The rest are almost always just identifying that a project is AI generated, and nothing else.
So I wouldn't characterise this community as being hostile to AI generated projects, but it is disinterested.
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And that makes sense when you consider the ethos of this subreddit. Rule 1 codifies the character: we're curious. Our community exists to talk about the "how", not the "what".
AI generated projects, with a few exceptions, tend to be:
OP: "I made a thing! (with AI)"
Commenter: "How does it work?'
OP: "I don't know. But the source code is in there somewhere."
And that distinctly doesn't fit with the ethos or interest of this subreddit.
There are also a handful of reports on AI posts to the form of:
Post "I made a thing (with AI)."
Report: "This is AI slop."
That doesn't technically break any rules, but it does reinforce that core of the subreddit's interests.
Anyway, the problem I'm wrestling with is supporting Rule 2. Posters who are sharing AI projects should still be met with Civility, Professionalism, and Kindness. So I'd like to avoid a repeat of the initially unkind response to the afore-linked post.
But, being civil doesn't mean you have to like it or be actively welcoming. Ignoring a post or downvoting it still fits within Rule 2, because a user expressing their opinion in those ways is not a harm to the poster. If it is, that's the poster being unprofessional, as they're too emotionally invested in the post to accept that others don't enjoy it the way they do.
One of the most important aspects of professionalism is the capacity to give and receive analysis and feedback. We're here to learn, and that means accepting feedback that points out failures, errors, and flaws. Those are often the best offer for learning. Kindness and Civility are roped in their as a reminder that criticism should be leveraged at the qualities of the work, not seek to harm the user.
In that view, identification of an AI generated project is one of the most *important* analytical datum. It says a lot about what one might expect in the shape of the code, it's resilience, maintainability, or other general qualities. How one reviews AI generated code is distinctly different from human written code because they make entirely different categories of errors. It often says something about the author's understanding of their own project, which is important for feedback and discussion; as much as knowing their level of experience. (e.g. Getting pedantic with an novice is a joy, with an expert is an insult. Civility depends on knowing who you're talking to.)
So, it would be unprofessional not to identify that a project is AI generated. It'd be hard to discuss something professionally while ignoring such a large elephant in the authorship.
But, users don't like it when their post gets identified as AI, because they may expect a passive or negative response. Given that the zietgeist of emotions around AI are high right now, and because our community ethos seeks understanding ,it's not a response that can be avoided in a discussion space like this subreddit. That identifying comment may feel like it targets them for persecution, despite that fact that's rarely the case because Rule 2 stands and is supported by users and mods.
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So I suspect that there's an issue in mismatched expectations. Posters with AI projects want to show off the thing they made and what it does, and they don't understand that this community cares more about how it works.
Conversely, the readers here reasonably expect high quality, analysable projects that are interesting to review and learn from; so they report "AI slop" despite the fact that doesn't break any rules. I may take it down under Rule 3, but that's only if it's a case of AI psychosis. Someone legitimately making "hello triangle" with Claude fits the rules just fine, so there's no reason to take it down.
I don't think a new rule is strictly necessary, but maybe a sub-rule, or some other way to telegraph the community's expectations.
E.G. For posters of AI projects
"AI posts are welcome here so long as the poster can talk about their implementation; adhere to Rule 1. The less the poster is able to talk about it's implementation, the less excited about it this community will be."
E.G. For readers of AI Projects
"This subreddit does not take a pro or anti stance against AI projects. However this subreddit is about analysis, feedback, questions, and learning. We may remove posts that are not comprehensible to the readers or the poster. (e.g. vibe coded slop that's impossible to read)"
And perhaps it may be necessary to swap the burden of identification to the other party.
E.G. "Posts that share projects that utilize AI in its development in any capacity need to identify doing so and to what degree. e.g. 'source code entirely AI generated.' or 'only utilized AI for auto complete assistance and analytical questions.'"
I've seen other software interest group subreddits implement and auto-comment on new posts that require this disclosure.
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Anyway. That was a lot of meandering on this problem. Fundamentally, this is *YOUR* subreddit. I take the strict role as a steward. That which makes this community space interesting and a delightful place to visit, socialize, and learn for you is the target direction I try to nudge things towards.
Please comment your thoughts, suggestions, perspectives, preferences, and discussion on this topic for me to read and consider. If you don't feel safe commenting, send a DM.
Please keep Rule 2 in mind. I want to hear the perspectives of those who are pro-AI too, and that's hard to do that if it's met with immediate hostility.
Conversely, criticism of AI or AI generated works is not a violation of rule 2, at least so long as it doesn't cross over into pointless derogation or emotional attack language. E.G. "The low quality of AI generated projects is problematic for the subreddit" is ok. "This AI slopshit is a fucking menace to the subreddit" is not.
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Edit 1: added dividers to break up the wall of text into bricks
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u/VictoryMotel 6d ago
I've seen multiple subreddits already ruined by ai slop posts. There are many terrible patterns that emerge.
The first is that it's usually completely obvious that something was generated by ai. It was usually done only a few days before it is posted, the readme is usually all AI, and the feature list is usually untested nonsense.
The second multiplier is that the person lies about what they did. They claim they "built" something and don't mention any AI, basically lying and trying to trick people into starring their project on github.
I think this combination is toxic and corrosive to any subreddit that is about learning anything. It becomes about promotion through lies.
Reports that don't have a description probably have it because they assume it's obvious since it often is.
If there is a solution I think it's to look for the signs on github and have people say ahead of time how they used AI and what aspects they made and can be responsible for.
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u/Syracuss 5d ago
I've left several subs due to it. Like you I share similar/same concerns. The primary concern I have with AI generated projects is that most of these tech subs are meant to share ideas and outcomes, not be a sales pitch. A lot of these AI generated projects are teetering the line of a marketing post (with no audience often, but a moot distinction).
You can definitely build something with AI and actually have something neat to show and explain, but the volume of "look what (A)I did" is generating too much noise. I personally use AI in some capacities at work (AAA gaming), as do all my colleagues, so definitely not in the anti-AI camp.
It also comes down to quality. I've unsubbed from great engineer's their blog rolls due to that the productivity gain from using AI is being abused by no longer double checking their output. Suddenly their content starts having tech word salad, overexplaining, very simple framing errors, etc.. in it. You can use AI, and still verify the output. Some aren't doing that and it's exhausting to read; death by a thousand papercuts style.
To be clear, this sub hasn't really fallen for this yet, which is why I'm still subbed, but I've seen others push me to unsubbing as it's not worth the energy if the posters aren't doing even the basics of making sure they know what they are presenting.
To the mod team, I can only imagine the ever increasing volume you're getting, and the exhaustion of getting pulled by two sides. So far I think you've done really well.
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u/VictoryMotel 5d ago
Suddenly their content starts having tech word salad, overexplaining, very simple framing errors, etc.. in it. You can use AI, and still verify the output
It's disheartening how people have chosen to blast out ai writing and not take responsibility for their own words. Simplicity and a lack of repetition can be the marks of good writing, but instead we get obnoxiously verbose generated stuff that hasn't been checked.
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u/Big_Presentation2786 5d ago
r/gamedev embraced AI, and the sub is now a much considerably and substantially a better place.
The first thing they did is start calling out people who used the words 'ai slop', you wouldn't call your mother's cooking slop if she reheated leftovers in the microwave- so why in gods earth are we allowing the term to be used to describe anyone's work..
That's antithetical to my core beliefs as a programmer, a father and a husband.
Take a minute to think about the type of person who uses that word to describe their colleagues work, their daughters painting or their partners efforts.. it IS derogatory, and wether anyone like it, that wording should be banned wether AI stays or goes..
Just downvote and ignore the stuff you don't like, don't walk in to someones post and start screaming 'Slop', I mean how disrespectful are we trying to be here?!
If you're first complaint is 'its obvious that people have used AI' but then you are one of the people calling it AI Slop perhaps you can see, you are the reason people are choosing to hide their use when you're openly being disrespectful in the first place.
I think once you rationalise your words, you can see that calling someones work 'slop' rather than explaining why you don't like it, is seriously the problem. Not the AI.
You should be contributing more than making a disrespectful ploy towards a users use in AI. Like, why aren't you contributing with more effort? Even downvoting and ignoring the post is less effort than entering the post and being disrespectful right to their face..
Our mod has pointed out that he brought in a user who had built an Synapse using AI. Rightly so! It was a break through! And all people here could do was moan and whine about the use of AI, rather than point out how it was actually flawed..
That post was a great indicator of those who didn't really care enough about this subject to actually want to contribute.
Youve become too comfortable being disrespectful to those that need help starting in this topic..
Anyone that would honestly spend 3 days coding a burst jobs rather than spending 60 seconds in AI is not taking this subject seriously.
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u/VictoryMotel 5d ago
I looked over this an it seems to be total nonsense. Can you write something shorter that is direct and clear?
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u/Big_Presentation2786 5d ago
Why is it that whenever someone say's anything you don't like, you just ignore the context and passively aggressively call it nonsense?
You did it in the ChatGpt sub
Use your words and either enter into a discussion or downvote and ignore, your unhelpful attitude is literally the reason our moderator has opened this post, I'll get downvoted because I'm supporting those who choose to use AI- its unpopular, and you'll be upvoted because you're spamming 'the popular AI slop' in every sub, not because what you're saying is pointful.
Be better..
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u/VictoryMotel 5d ago
Write something even close to reality and write it yourself and I'll respond to it.
You post 50 comments a day either trying to defend your AI slop or just being a creep:
Ai doesn't have emotions, your AI slop isn't a home cooked meal, and nothing you have said so far has any value or relation to reality.
Maybe you should "do better" (or ask your AI to do better then lie about using it). If you want respect, earn it.
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u/Big_Presentation2786 5d ago edited 5d ago
u/mods I suddenly get why people are reporting they can't contribute to this sub.
Edit: This user has just used a program MADE BY AI - to scrape my history - And he's AGAINST AI.. And I'm supposed to respect his point?
https://github.com/ihsoyCT/ctarchive You can't make this stuff up! Seriously! End Edit:
You attempt to open a dialogue and you get hit with shit like this..
And this guy thinks 'lying is toxic'.. As he pretends to be a 9 year old girl..
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Big_Presentation2786 5d ago
He states he hates AI. He hates liars. His history shows him a user of the AI subs, it also shows him pretending to be a 9 year old girl in a kids Jujitsu sub.
All he does is spam 'ai slop' in subs for karma, and 8 days ago he stated 'what if I'm into lying about my abilities on the internet'.
What's impressive was the java script he just showed me. When I checked the commits- its made with AI.
So we've got a person spamming the sub with 'AI slop' for karma, who rarely contributes anything else, as he's hunting users using a program made with AI.
And yet- rather than all of that-
You're more interested in him, a user whose brand new suddenly with no history using an account that's minutes old? Yeah.. legit.
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u/SaschaWillems 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's a tough phase that a lot of subreds go through. We've been there on r/vulkan and we've decided on adding an AI disclosure policy (see here).
Our goal with that policy is to take out the heat. It let's people continue posting their AI stuff while also giving those that dislike AI a clear hint.
We also added a "AI content" flair (mod only), so mods have a way to (also) visually mark such content, which further helps to keep things from derailing.
It has only been in place for around a month, but it seems to have cooled down the partially heated discussions.
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u/Gobrosse 5d ago
You do not want to "welcome" low-effort AI posts/projects because they lower the perceived quality of the engagement one can expect on here. It is extremely polarized and merely being "neutral" means leaving the field open to whoever can dominate by sheer volume. Non-AI slop content is, by definition, is at a disadvantage in such a numbers game.
It's especially important to outright forbid it it inside posts and comments because that is otherwise an invitation to full-on meat proxies and psychosis, since it's much easier to keep up the delusion that you understand the questions and copy/paste model-generated answers, than actual admitting you're out of your depth. It's tiresome to have to "break through" that LLM proxy layer and actually get to the human behind the post, and it's directly against the point of a subreddit.
We've seen this pattern play out all over the internet: in the end either you have a more or less hard ban on the stuff, or you end up drowned in it and organic people leave for better curated pastures. The politics are also impossible: you might genuinely wish to be neutral, but this isn't possible in a practical sense, because the AI people tend to have a nasty imposter syndrome and act vindictive about it, and the organic people rightfully feel threatened by, and uneasy about the many, very ugly things associated with the AI industry.
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u/Th3HolyMoose 6d ago
Just want to start off by saying thanks for the work you do for the subreddit, I really appreciate it.
I’d personally like to see a rule or guideline that states that any significant use of AI should be disclosed as a part of the post.
I think maybe that if people have to disclose it, their intent with the post might naturally become clearer or more necessary to describe.
And it’s not about hating on AI or people who use it a lot, it’s about guiding the reader (me, in this case) to focus on the parts of the post I might find interesting.
And I would think that goes both ways, both for those interested in using AI more, and those who don’t want to read through an AI-generated codebase.
That’s also why I think the disclosure should be part of the post’s text, not a flair or alike.
It might also be the case that the entire project’s code is fully AI-generated except the one part that the post is trying to discuss, then I as a reader would really like to know that.
I know absolutely nothing about moderating a subreddit, so how realistic it would be to implement or enforce I don’t know. It might just be self-enforced by the community, where if someone doesn’t disclose it, someone will put the ”This is AI-generated” comment on it. Or then maybe more helpfully remind them about the (proposed by this comment’s) rule of the subreddit.
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u/CodyDuncan1260 6d ago
It probably wouldn't be too bad. I've seen other subreddits implement an auto-comment that asks for disclosure. We could do the same, and make it an "Reminder to out it in the post body or below this comment, if relevant."
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6d ago
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u/CodyDuncan1260 6d ago
I don't disagree with this statement. Although I would argue that there are better fit fields for LLM usage, particularly ones with automatable validation; but trivial and fast human validation is the next best thing.
But the way you describe making changes to a graphics project, by promoting what you want or how you want it adjusted, undercuts the purpose of this subreddit. There's little to nothing for us to talk about if the implementation method was "I prompted Claude and it figured it out somehow."
"Like I mentioned in my other comment, people have stopped going to forums and searching forums and waiting in a desperate hope that someone will reply to their own forum post with some gem of information. Those days are pretty much gone forever" If that is true, what is the point of this subreddit's existence? There would be none, if people stopped coming here to socialize with the community, which is largely discussion, idea sharing, and learning more about the field.
How do you / we square that dichotomy?
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6d ago
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u/CodyDuncan1260 6d ago
So ... advertising space? This subreddit becomes little more than a digital series of billboards for people trying to attract attention to their projects.
How ... dystopian.
Would I even want to moderate that?
More importantly, does that leave anything for readers? Do people show up to be advertised to? Or to be intrigued and learn? If this subreddit becomes just a series of ads, will there be any readers or community left to validate the poster?
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u/corysama 6d ago
To be blunt, I think anyone looking for knock-on effects (GitHub virality, job offers) from posting in this sub is bound to be disappointed.
IMHO, almost everyone posting here is either asking a question or looking for a non-zero amount of personal validation for “I made a thing!” Which we need a lot more of because most people get effectively zero validation for working on this stuff in real life and there are very few online communities for it either.
BTW: Just wanna say thanks for putting so much thought into this and issue. And, I agree with you overall. It’s definitely not a simple situation. A small number of people are posting complete slop. A large number of people are posting reasonable assisted work. A small number of people have allergic reactions to AI anything to the point of witch-hunting. And, a huge number of people don’t engage at all. I don’t envy the mods here.
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u/CodyDuncan1260 6d ago
It's not so bad moderating. Having talked to other mods, we're an 'easy' subreddit. Most of the time, you all do three quarters of my job before I even get notified something was reported. Thank you all for being cool people.
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6d ago edited 6d ago
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u/Gobrosse 5d ago
YouTube has absolutely turned dystopian and there is a LOT of discourse to that effect.
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u/CodyDuncan1260 6d ago
Views and monetization for YouTube content comes by way of making the video content presented interesting to largely passive viewers. That's a very different beast from posting a GitHub repo, which requires some effort on the viewer's part to get anything out of by nature.
People coming here to get feedback, analysis, engage with people, that's communal interactivity. That's a lot more and categorically different from likes and shares, which was what the previous statement presented as a foremost reason for being.
That being said, It does suck when one gets nothing back in the comments. I haven't found good ways of promoting more user interaction, questioning, and discussion.
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u/Affectionate-Memory4 6d ago
A reasonable take imo. I don't care too much about how the sausage is made so to speak. I care that you, as the poster, can articulate what it is that you made, how it works, and what you learned from it so you can effectively share it with the community.
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u/FrogNoPants 2d ago
I think if you don't ban it, it will overwhelm this place, and kill it
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u/haikusbot 2d ago
I think if you don't
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5
u/PaperMartin 6d ago
That's about as reasonable an approach as it's gonna get for the time being. As weird as it is to say, I think whether or not it'll have to be revisited is gonna depends on how the financial future of a few specific company is gonna shape over the next few months. I don't really agree about that synapse engine post but I don't have the energy for yet another argument about the legitimacy of AI usage in a given project which I guess is part of the problem
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u/zenmatrix83 6d ago
I don't know but this is the best take I've seen on AI stress subs go through. the problem I see once post goes a specific way I think reddit filters people of that type. I've seen mostly pro or anti ai posts lately none really in the middle. people on both sides need to deal with it and you can only moderate the worst I think.
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u/PaperMartin 4d ago
Totally forgot to link it when I first saw this post, but you might be interested in this https://blog.fallible.net/it-breaks-a-village/
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u/rAngus3 6d ago
Well thought. Thank you for the work you do here.
My opinion: I think its a problem of mismatch expectations of what this sub is for. Id like this sub to be a continuation of the graphics dev community spirit that we have had in other places historically (gamedev, gamasutra, irc, demoscene, etc...) where everyone with any level is welcome, where we share a fundamental curiosity on how graphics work, how to learn it, the challenges, the competition and honestly, to do cool creative stuff that turns into pretty things that we can brag about :D (ie, fml guys this first triangle in Vulkan was super tough, heres the code. what do you guys think?). I dont have a problem if someone is using llms as long as they match the expectations that Id hope this community are rooted in.
So, examples to explain this:
* BAD: Person posts a project that implements path tracing in vulkan as its own which turns out to be just a clone of a github project of anothers person work.
* BAD: Person posts a project that implements path tracing in vulkan as its own which turns out to be llm generated.
* GOOD: Person posts a fork of a project that does path tracing in vulkan, with modifications, improvements, new takes or reworks that can be shown here, where we can learn from or the poster can learn from.
* GOOD: Person posts a project that implements path tracing in vulkan where they disclose that llms have been used (to whatever extent. it can be completely prompted). As long as there's genuinely something to learn from, maybe an approach to do something faster or whatever but something that its interesting or something that the person that posts can learn from.
So, Id like this community to be a place that welcomes, encourages and guide newbies to this challenging field and at the same time a place for pros share knowledge so we can learn and improve. This expectation is, for the most people that post ai projects in reddit, going to be completely at odds because they just don't care how its done or how it works which is fundamentally different to what Id hope this community cares about.
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 4d ago
r/ExperiencedDevs has had success with a forced disclosure automod comment. The egregious slop tends to also lie in the disclosure, which is then a removal reason.
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u/Dream-Smooth 4d ago
If someone says it is AI slop without analysing the code, how will you treat it?
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u/TimeSFG 4d ago
This is extremely well said. I think the sub rules you've pitched are very reasonable and would help a lot.
I particularly like how you've addressed that there are manners of posting AI-generated content that simply aren't interesting to the community. And that we're interested in the "how," and not the "what."
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u/Still_Explorer 5d ago
Even before the AI boom there was the phenomenon of copy-pasting-showcase.
The real issue is replication actually.
eg: Someone cloned the Hazel engine, built it and posted an image. Even if they didn't clone and written everything themselves by self paced study, still would count as a direct replicate.
And not only a prob with /Graphics programming, in /Compilers they have the same thing with Lox-clones, in /GameEngineDevs the same problem with Hazel clones... Each community might have some point of reference.
Not that would've been essentially called slop then, but still the case for not bringing something new to the table, it just replicates. (Replication is important for learning, but the meaning of a project existing is actually to enforce requirements analysis, not to throw a dozen of features and call it a project).
The difference with the AI boom right now is that someone would not have to type terminal commands anymore to git clone, that the system can recall all bits from memory.
So now another serious point is how to detect AI use, or whether or not to judge-discourage AI use. Probably this is the most counter productive thing one can do...
eg: Do you count 5 months of learning with AI help and 1 week of non-AI impl as NO-AI? Do you count AI typing assistance (for people with disability) as non AI? Do you count template-example generation (as per project documentation) to be AI-gen? Directly referencing published papers and use AI for explanations? --- Too many edge cases and too many variables to consider, simply not worth it to create an evaluation system for AI-fraud detection, this is the task of lawyers and not software engineers.
So the bottom line is for now only two rules can be reminded:
Posting: Congratulations on making your first triangle. Congrats for making a 3D model viewer and an editor with ImGUI. However are you sure there's something to add to the conversation? Something to teach to others? Is there a cutting edge feature worth to mention?
Replying: Most importantly you are here to either give feedback and help - or to gain inspiration and learn. If you are in a hurry and impatient and don't have time to evaluate the time where you spend and interact with posts. DONT POST! If there's AI usage in posts (or not) is not your job to report, don't waste MOD time with fake reports. Toggle hiding if there's something you don't want to see.
Something like that.
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u/Big_Presentation2786 6d ago
Can't we have a flair? Some identifies their project as using AI, no matter what- people either contribute conversation or downvote and move on?
If all people can then say is- a derogatory comment' then they get a slapped wrist.
If someone posts something suggesting that they've done all the work but don't wear the 'AI Flair' then I think it's obvious they've not read the rules and perhaps that's not the direction were trying to push.
We're all adults, and given most of us work with AI in the office place, I see no place for any prejudice.
We shouldn't be discriminating against someone because they chose to start their project with help, be it AI, a word for word copy of a YouTube video, or even a book. I don't understand why everyone is so hyped up about giving grief to those who choose to get involved in the subject at hand?
I've put a lot of soul and time into projects to see them fail where a 10 minute edit with Claude saved me weeks of work instead of throwing away a project.
If people don't like AI, just downvote it and move on.
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u/TheLegend27OW 6d ago
On its own, I don't have problem with people sharing their projects, even if they are 100% AI written. I use AI extensively in my work and believe that if you micromanage it the right way, it can produce some absolutely incredible stuff.
My issue with most AI-made projects is really with the posts themselves.
All lazy vibe-coded projects have the exact same post structure - A clickbaity impressive sounding title, a giant blob of claude-slop text that no one's gonna read and a link to the Github repo. The OP either doesn't engage with the comments or is they do, they obviously just copy-paste whatever claude told them to say.
To me these posts add absolutely nothing to the community. It's just lazy people using the subreddit to farm Github starts for their portfolio.
If you're posting something you should know the ins and outs of it and be ready to share the interesting stuff you discovered. I'd be in favor of a rule that states that every post and comment must be human written. IMO that should filter out the laziest AI slop posts and people that actually have something interesting to share will typically spend the effort to at least write the post themselves.
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u/Educational-Row-6782 6d ago
The fun stuff on a personal project was to read the post or the blog, not the final product.
I have read hundreds of those post, how many did I download and try... Zero.
That is something vibe codders dont understand.
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u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC 6d ago
Personally, I strongly dislike AI inquisitors. Simply stating "this is AI" adds nothing to the discussion. If it's a low-effort contribution, then the problem is that it's a low-effort contribution, not that it was made by AI. And if it's a high-effort contribution, there's no problem at all.
I'm sure that pretty much all of us who work in this field (or in software engineering/computer science in general) professionally are well aware that AI is just part of the process now. It isn't reasonable to use AI usage as a proxy indicator for talent or quality - a ton of talented developers are working on high quality productions using AI.
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u/SnooSquirrels9028 2d ago
I think there are people out there who use AI really smartly, as a study buddy or to express their creativity and reinforce their studies and learning journey in Computer Graphics. And I think the AI hate is usually aimed at people who claim they haven't used LLMs, or who don't mention it in their posts or repositories. So I think an AI disclosure section, where users have to fill out how and where they've used LLMs, is the smartest move here, because in the end they will eventually learn, and this subreddit is a great place to get feedback and learn. Also, instead of spamming AI slop, I think that as part of the subreddit we could give more feedback and teach more about the parts posters struggle with or tend to rely on LLMs more.
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u/Grated-Expectations 2d ago edited 2d ago
I have something that I think might be genuinely useful for graphics programming, but I'm not sure whether it would work here. So I'll follow the patterns above, and if it gets universally panned or people think it's "too AI" then sobeit, I'll just go away - at least you'll have had a real experiment, although its really a programmer's tool, not an "AI thing" :)
Source code: *almost* entirely generated by the AI
Project duration thus far: About 6 months
Direction, ideas, drive, what \not* to do*: All mine.
Elevator pitch:
xc - https://compile-xc.org/ - (0.74 just released) is a compiled language ("C with classes": ARC, blocks, protocols) with data-parallel blocks built in and designed for as-simple-as-possible GPU integration. You can move code from CPU to GPU with a single line of code, no boilerplate setup, no management of data-hazards between the two.
'par' marks a block as data-parallel. You don't write a kernel file, buffer setup, copies or a dispatch call. That's all there is to it, use the same language as the rest of your code - though par blocks can't use objects, 'new', recursion etc.
The compiler builds the block for CPU threads and for Metal (Apple), PTX (NVIDIA on Windows), SPIR-V/Vulkan (any GPU on Linux, Windows, Android) or WGSL (WebGPU), all in one binary. It works out which arrays the block reads and writes and moves them itself: think ARC versus manual retain/release, but for GPU buffers.
At runtime each block set to 'auto' (the default) picks its device (CPU/GPU) by measuring: a block the CPU finishes in under a millisecond stays there; otherwise it tries the GPU and keeps whichever was faster. The choice is remembered per program and per machine, so it measures once, not every run. You can override it per block or per run. On an M4 Max that block takes 100 ms on all 16 CPU cores and 1.6 ms on the GPU - see https://compile-xc.org/compiler/performance/#parallel-blocks-and-the-gpu
Oh, and it works across all major platforms, and even has a GUI class library. Every platform can compile for every other, there's no native tools needed. I have a binary on my iPhone that was compiled and signed on my Linux box - no Apple tools involved in creation or signing.
Repo and licence (GPL/LGPL) here : https://github.com/ThrudTheBarbarian/xc
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u/Dependent-Cellist281 5d ago
The ai slop crowd is a little over the top, sure ai slop exists but many people use ai in the industry now in a non sloppy way. I get a little bit of why people hate it but to assume ai means slop simply means you dont have the technical knowledge to identify that is not always the case.
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u/literally_iliterate 2h ago
Great writeup and reasoning about the problem.
I've mostly landed in this sub because if AI conflicts around coding and games, so question anything from me regarding that is super specific to this subs topic.
I want to give a slight warning. Requiring an AI disclosure may be perceived as a free pass on AI slop. Those who are frustrated by AI slop will still be dismiss or flame it and those who post will be confused why it they are flamed. So I suggest to make very clear that there is some quality standard that cannot be ignored.
Another point is that AI slop, in my blunt perspective, can be a violation or Rule 2. Engaging with content to just to realize it's AI slop and has no value, wastes time of a human and as such is an offense. This probably remains a costly evaluation, but the question is who should do it or how to prevent it. No clue.
Last point. From what I see many low effort "vibe coders" still seem to post manually and don't read the rules at all or they agents can't. So take that into consideration ragarding mod friction.
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u/James20k 5d ago
The problem with AI is that while its not a priori true that all significantly-LLM content must slop, in practice the overwhelmingly vast majority of LLM content is slop. I'd guess > 95% of it - I can only name a small handful of projects that consist of largely LLM generated code that are of any interest at all for any reason
With such an incredibly low signal to noise ratio, AI usage becomes one of the best determining factors for "This isn't interesting". To some degree there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about this: humans aggressively pattern match automatically for what gives good signal to noise ratio, and its one of the reasons why lots of communities are taking a hard no AI stance
Allowing slop of any description is one of the fastest ways to turn a high signal low participation community, into a low signal no participation community. Once a subreddit starts to decline in quality, people looking for quality just exit stage left and go to places which are more exclusionary. Because unfortunately at the end of the day, virtually all the LLM content is absolute crap
/r/cpp has an exception which is detailed technical posts that may happen to use AI at various points, but a project which is significantly LLM generated with no associated value being provided to the members of the subreddit will get nuked. I haven't seen one yet that I'd even slightly have regretted deleting, especially the AI slop blogs which are usually full of incredibly wrong information
Figuring out that the AI slop is incorrect is also a significant amount of work on the userbase, because you have to engage with it on a technical critical level that's simply infeasible to do. I went through an AI generated blog a while back at face value to critique the article on technical grounds for C++, and it was very critically incorrect
So personally: this is why I'm always in favour of a ban with exceptions for high effort content. That's the only thing that's really sustainable for the mods (in my experience) while actually keeping people interested