Shafik Yaghmour
@shafik.bsky.social
1K followers 242 following 882 posts
Compiler Engineer clang front end. Interests: C++, C, and undefined behavior. Martial Artist, Book Worm and Dad. he/him Mastodon: hachyderm.io/@shafik Blog: shafik.github.io #cplusplus #compilers
![Big AI believes they should not be held accountable for the consequences of their AI systems because these systems are unpredictable and perhaps uncontrollable. A certain AI researcher said of recent AI hacking incidents: “AI agents … took actions that would be considered as crimes if a human took them”—seemingly taking it as axiomatic that these were not human-controlled activities and therefore cannot qualify as crimes. But they were and they do. This outrageous position inverts decades of US law about dangerous items generally and computer hacking in particular (e.g., the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act). So let’s call this narrative what it is: an attempt to thwart the rule of law. Individual human programmers have been sentenced to prison for far less than what AI companies have done recently. This relates to what I foresaw in 2023:
If AI companies are allowed to market AI systems that are essentially black boxes … we will not delegate decisions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will delegate decisions to AI systems because they can get away with everything that we can’t. … [W]e could end up with something truly novel: technology systems that deserve much higher levels of legal scrutiny (because of the consequentiality of their outputs) but simultaneously resist such scrutiny (because of the opacity of their inputs and reasoning).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:k5fyc6rcfymrclduzvnigvlf/bafkreifbf3fqe2txlawqgsg6rjvi5f2ebamutvi7sipw6xnebetmnrmpbq)
![Big AI believes that the burden is on government and citizens to affirmatively stop Big AI from proceeding. Since overtly opposing regulation is a bad look, Big AI CEOs have occasionally made noises about being open to regulation. As one AI CEO said recently: “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.” But as Big AI is well aware, there’s no chance of AI-specific domestic laws or international treaties being enacted soon enough to matter. Indeed, the same AI CEO blamed democracy for not meeting his KPIs: “[u]nfortunately, passing laws can take time”. A widely signed March 2023 letter sought to pause AI research; like all chain letters, it accomplished nothing. After a genuine AI catastrophe arrives, we can be sure these same AI CEOs will say “gosh—why didn’t you make us stop?”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:k5fyc6rcfymrclduzvnigvlf/bafkreifupjuhf2mvzkfhqfoj3wysoikmml3v2lkzg63e3bfzj254xvsfzm)
![of contributors doesn't [sic] know how to resolve a merge conflict."56
A few years later, he followed up with more observations:
• Almost no one writes a good pull request title
• More than half don't know about the 'Fixes #112' syntax
• ~30% don't run tests locally before submitting a PR
• ~40% don't include docs/tests57
l've also noticed that the general PR quality has gone considerably down in the past few years. I guess it's a result of GitHub's increased popularity. "\("/) /~58
It's not the fault of new developers. They don't know how open source works, and they've been told that they're doing the right thing by asking questions. "Don't let this be a deterrent for you to contribute though," Sorhus himself added.59 "Just keep in mind that my time is finite and if I have to go back and forth on your PR for stuff you could have caught yourself with a second look, you take time away from other PRs."60
Open source maintainers have become the de facto teachers for developers who are learning how to contribute. In the past, this made sense when new developers were trying to join a project's community. Today, rehashing the basics to a revolving door of strangers can be fatiguing: death by a thousand paper cuts. Developer Nolan Lawson describes his experience as a perverse effect where, the more successful you are, the more you get 'punished' with GitHub notifications."61](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:k5fyc6rcfymrclduzvnigvlf/bafkreie5vbctxaq6tbcw7fvty3yjuyyzeymb3dafmxyiqg5cuflzb6xr7e)
