On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 2:59 AM Wolfgang Jeltsch via ghc-devs < [email protected]> wrote:
> On Saturday, 11 July 2026, 06:15 Moritz Angermann wrote: > > > I think it [the draft LLM policy] ignores the English as a Second > > Language part. If a contributor uses LLM tools to improve/rephrase > > documentation they write to use more natural, idiomatic and clearer > > English, I’d be very happy for them to do this. > > Note, though, that such LLM use carries the risk that people just > delegate the work of improving their texts to LLMs and thus don’t train > themselves to write better texts. That argument seems to come up again and again. You always have a choice to learn or not. Don’t use a calculator you won’t be able to do simple math in your head anymore. Don’t use computers to write letters your handwriting will degrade. This is imo gatekeeping. Don’t use X because you should really do it yourself by hand. We’d rather you stay away than use assistive technologies. Don’t use cars to travel, learn to ride a horse properly. > > “LLM-generated code will contain different mistakes than code written > > by humans does while the results often look very similar on the first > > glance.” If we make such a claim, we need to put substance to it; this > > needs a source. > > Good insight can come from a multitude of understanding, experience, and > reflection, while scientific studies on complex topics carry the risk of > oversimplifying matters. A good human judgement may be more valuable > than quoting a source. > Fair, so this is meant to only be a neutral observation? We should remove the implied: LLMs make worse mistakes than humans from it then. While I agree that LLMs may make different mistakes to humans, I find implying that LLM mistakes are worse than human made mistakes (especially when assuming that a human used the tool only assistive, and fully owns the result), to be highly questionable if not outright malicious. > where does attribution start? Am I going to add assisted by: vim, > > emacs, vscode, macros, stack overflow answers, snippets libraries? > > No, it is only about LLMs. 🙂 The functionality of editors and macros is > understandable by the user, the behavior of LLM systems is not. > Here we disagree; but this would likely end up splitting hairs on what the meaning of understanding behavior is and I have no interest in debating that. > If I use an LLM to instantiate a for loop for me, auto complete an > > identifier, execute a macro, …? > > Why would you want to use an LLM for this? Doesn’t this make your life > harder, at least in the long run? > This is pretty much the usecase for copilots auto complete. Basically a souped up version of intellisense like autocomplete + a snippets expansion. Just AI driven to get better context sensitive autocomplete. Again the argument missives the point. Why do I want to restrict other people in their freedom and prescribe them what and how to use things? Who am I to (a) assume I know better, and (b) dictate others what to do? > I feel a lot of these policies feel like they try to prescribe/dictate > > some behavior instead of leading and focusing on the intended outcome. > > The outcome cannot be separated from the behavior that led to it. Sure, > there can be a lot of freedom regarding how people arrive at their > outcomes, but LLM systems are fundamentally different from normal tools > and thus using them may result in outcome of a different kind. Okay then, no one is forcing anyone to use an LLM on the other hand there seem to be a significant number of people who think it is fine to try to force others not to use LLMs (for now; who knows what we’ll end up prohibiting next? Maybe using emacs because lisp is too powerful?). The asymmetry of the argument and perceived lack of self reflection in this discussion is what irritates me. If you are so against LLMs, and feel threatened by others using LLMs, please bring concrete receipts of LLM usage (on GHC), that directly impacts you and your freedom. I’m more than happy to engage in constructive factual and grounded arguments how to prevent abusive and freedom restricting behavior (not necessarily limited to LLMs even). I am not willing to continue arguing about hypothetical, ethical, sociological, philosophical or similar topics loosely relating to LLMs. Best, Moritz >
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