Hi Sebastian, On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 9:00 AM Sebastian Berg <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sat, 2026-02-14 at 08:35 +0200, matti picus via NumPy-Discussion > wrote: > > On Fri, 13 Feb 2026 at 23:51, Robert Kern via NumPy-Discussion < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 6:26 PM Matthew Brett via NumPy-Discussion > > > < > > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Just to clarify - in case it wasn't clear, what I'm floating as a > > > > proposal, would be something like this, as a message to PR > > > > authors: > > > > > > > > Please specify one of these: > > > > > > > > 1) I wrote this code myself, without looking at significant AI- > > > > generated > > > > code OR > > > > 2) The code contains AI-generated content, but the AI-generated > > > > code is > > > > sufficiently trivial that it cannot reasonably be subject to > > > > copyright OR > > > > 3) There is non-trivial AI-generated code in this PR, and I have > > > > documented my searches to confirm that no parts of the code are > > > > subject to > > > > existing copyright. > > > > > > > > So - the burden for the reviewer is just to confirm, in case 3, > > > > that the > > > > author has documented their searches. We take the word of the > > > > contributor > > > > for the option they have chosen. Obviously, the documentation > > > > requirement > > > > of case 3 is somewhat of a burden for the contributor, and may > > > > therefore > > > > encourage them to write the code themselves, to avoid that > > > > burden. That > > > > might not be a bad thing, long term, for the project, and it > > > > seems > > > > reasonable to me as some defence against copyright violation, and > > > > a message > > > > that the project cares about such violation. > > > > > > > > > > For Case 3, I would love to see an example of the search that you > > > would > > > accept. If you could take a recent PR (human or AI, doesn't really > > > matter > > > for this purpose), and show the search that would satisfy you, that > > > would > > > go a long way towards clarifying what you are asking for here. We'd > > > need a > > > worked example or two before adopting this policy because if I > > > don't know > > > what you are asking for, no new contributor will, either. > > > > > > -- > > > Robert Kern > > > _______________________________________________ > > > NumPy-Discussion mailing list -- [email protected] > > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > > https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/numpy-discussion.python.org > > > Member address: [email protected] > > > > > > Here is an example right now in NumPy. Apparently someone is deep > > diving > > into performance edge cases. They (most likely with the help of ai or > > totally by ai) submitted a three line PR > > https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/30810 to speed up np.array_equal. > > Now > > the same author submitted a much bigger PR to speed up np.isin > > https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/30828. Is the work the product of > > ai? > > Yes, but the author claims to have verified the code. Is the author > > ai or > > not? Should we proceed with the PR? > > > I suppose my opinion for now is: If you as a maintainer care/want to. > And that part I would be happy to put into a policy if need be (which > can/should mention more things!). > > The below got much longer... need to read: What Marten said ;). > > > In practice the issue I have with this type of PR isn't much about > copyright or that it is possible that almost all the work was using an > AI. > (Not because copyright it isn't an issue, I just don't think there were > PRs of a kind where I would be seriously worried about it.) > > It is really about the social dynamic and if a policy can help with > that, I am all for it. > Before, we had at least one of three intrinsically motivating reasons > to look at a PR/issue: > * We knew the submitter cares about seeing the feature (i.e. the result > not for contributions sake). > * It is just for contributions sake, but we are investing in community. > I.e. we like helping! > * Or I happen to care about it myself. (That could be scratching my > my own itch or thinking it is important for the project.) > > With the old waves of PRs from students, hacktoberfest, ... you pick > one. We had the community investment/interaction point applying in some > form and adding some motivation. > With the current wave I think an issue is that more often it leaves the > maintainer without _any_ of those motivational points applying -- I am > not even sure that the wave is bigger yet (but it is probably more a > swelling). > > > This actually started with issues, I think? My feeling is we have more > tiny issues (CuPy is a better example than NumPy here). > Issues that seem like some tool found them. They are often long and > verbose and at the end maybe a PR even gets merged, but at the end I > can't help but think: Well, we just fixed an issue that possibly zero > people in the world care about seeing fixed! > > Don't get me wrong, they are real issues and PRs! I like having extra > context for motivation [1], and I think we may need to manage them more > (and that may be putting up a policy to discourage or point to when > closing).
I could not agree more - and Stefan's blog post makes a similar - and very good - argument, Cheers, Matthew _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/numpy-discussion.python.org Member address: [email protected]
