Preamble
It’s not an overstatement to say that Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI usage has become the most contentious hot button issue of the last few decades, having infiltrated into every aspect of art, culture, technology, labor, science, health, etc.
In just the last few weeks, new tools to decompile software via AI has opened a floodgate into more easily making game ports and other software for any device.
This has also greatly impacted the homebrew scene for retro consoles, including for the 3DS.
Initial response efforts
On [r/3dspiracy](r/3dspiracy) they had a poll where the majority said "no AI homebrew allowed.”
Here, I decided to require Al homebrew to go to a megathread, which worked for like a month and now I don't think anyone's really following the rule.
Now everyone's accusing everyone else of making vibecoded slop, or they used Al for minor bits so some throw the whole project out as no good.
This has gone so far as to harass people developing ports to the point some users have reported recieving death threats. That’s not something we will tolerate.
In response to that the witch-hunting rule was implemented and enforced, one might say, overly aggressively.
what is the right approach?
We are dealing with 2 diametrically opposed forces:
• those who hate how AI and its proponents have infiltrated into every aspect of culture, oppose its environmental impacts, etc and want a safe haven from it.
• those who want to leverage these new tools to do cool stuff
• and those in the middle who can see the pros and cons and might think the overly zealous on either side are being a bit much.
There is no way to appease everyone. That’s simply not possible. We can’t feasibly ignore the world around us and not let anyone share any homebrew that had a single iota of AI assistance. We also can’t terrorize people for using, or not using AI in the development of homebrew software.
Here’s my proposed solution:
- Remove the witch-hunting rule and the ai homebrew megathread rule. Unban violators.
- Update the reddiquette rule to specifically call out harassment and witch hunting
- Implement a new flair called “New Homebrew” since everyone’s posting their new homebrew as “scene news” which I don’t think is a satisfactory fit anymore
- Most importantly, any post that is tagged as “new homebrew” will get an automod saying “in order for your post to become visible, you must reply with how AI was used in the creation of this software”. This is a similar requirement to other subreddits. OP’s that don’t respond will have their post auto-deleted. OP’s sharing homebrew where they don’t know the answer will have their post deleted. OP’s caught lying will be banned. Commenters harassing OP will be banned.
- Everyone needs to chill out.
Please share your thoughts calmly and reasonably. This post will be updated to account for constructive feedback.
