What I don't get, is why people think this action has value. The maintainer of the project could ask an LLM to do that. A senior dev.

I can't imagine Googling for something, seeing someone on (for example) stackoverflow commenting on code, and then filing a bug to the maintainer. And just copy and pasting what someone else said, into the bug report.

All without even comprehending the code, the project, or even running into the issue yourself. Or even running a test case yourself. Or knowing the codebase.

It's just all so absurd.

I remember in Asimov's Empire series of books, at one point a scientist wanted to study something. Instead of going to study whatever it was, say... a bug, the scientist looked at all scientific studies and papers over 10000 years, weighed the arguments, and pronounced what the truth was. All without just, you know, looking and studying the bug. This was touted as an example of the Empire's decay.

I hope we aren't seeing the same thing. I can so easily see kids growing up with AI in their bluetooth ears, or maybe a neuralink, and never having to make a decision -- ever.

I recall how Google became a crutch to me. How before Google I had to do so much more work, just working with software. Using manpages, or looking at the source code, before ease of search was a thing.

Are we going to enter an age where every decision made is coupled with the couching of an AI? This through process scares me. A lot.

I'd say that people take everything as if it was gamified. So the motivation would be just to boast about "raised 1 gazillion security reports in open-source project such as curl, etc. etc.".

AI just make these idiots faster these days, because the only cost for them to is typing "inspect `curl` code base and generate me some security reports".

> I remember in Asimov's Empire series of books, at one point a scientist wanted to study something.

Or "The Machine Stops" (1909):

> Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote.

> And even the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject. “Beware of first-hand ideas!” exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation. [...]"

The person who submitted the report was looking to be a person who found a critical bug, that's it. It's not about understanding/fixing/helping anything, it's about gaining clout.

> Using manpages, or looking at the source code, before ease of search was a thing.

Yup. Learned sockets programming just from manpages because google didn't exist at that point, and even if it did, I didn't have internet at home.

I have two teenagers. They sometimes have a completely warped view of how hard things are or that other people have probably thought the same things that they’re just now able to think.

(This is completely understandable and “normal” IMO.)

But it leads them to sometimes think that they’ve made a breakthrough and not sharing it would be selfish.

I think people online can see other people filing insightful bug reports, having that activity be viewed positively, misdiagnose the thought they have as being insightful, and file a bug report based on that.

At its core, I think it’s a mild version of narcissism or self-centeredness / lack of perspective.

>I remember in Asimov's Empire series of books, at one point a scientist wanted to study something. Instead of going to study whatever it was, say... a bug, the scientist looked at all scientific studies and papers over 10000 years, weighed the arguments, and pronounced what the truth was. All without just, you know, looking and studying the bug. This was touted as an example of the Empire's decay.

Stupid nitpick, but this is from the first Foundation novel, although it is an emissary from the empire making the case against firsthand knowledge.

I read a paper yesterday where someone had used an LLM to read other papers and was claiming that this was doing science.

Now just imagine some malicious party overwhelming software teams with shitloads of AI bug reports like this. I bet this will be weaponized eventually, if not already is.

Bill Joys 'Why the future dosen't need us' feels more and more correct sadly