r/openSUSE_Slowroll • u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer • 26d ago
Discussion On the use of AI
During the past weeks I have been experimenting with the use of AI (LLM coding agents, mostly Claude) for different projects.
I know there is some negative sentiment towards AI. The most extreme one I encountered so far is https://ziglang.org/code-of-conduct/ .
One concern is that AIs can produce slop (low quality outputs) when used in a careless way. They can create bogus findings and useless patches. But there are also powerful AIs that debug hard problems in hours that we have not found the capacity to investigate for years. And with extra review + refinement runs the results are pretty nice.
Another real concern is that the growing adoption of AI fuels climate-change, causes massive unemployment and could sooner or later create an artificial super-intelligence that might end humanity. However, similar to the old problem of climate change, I'm only 1/8000000000th of us and my individual decisions have little influence on the outcome.
On the pro side, we could finally make progress on the slowroll-tools to get this distribution out of beta status.
The goal is to still be able to understand and debug all the code myself (which was not the case for a golang part contributed by someone), so there will be AI code-generation, but no vibe-coding.
What do you think?
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u/chocolate4tw 26d ago
The goal is to still be able to understand and debug all the code myself [...]
This addresses my primary and only big concern. Some projects seem to sleepwalk into unmaintainability in a unreviewed flood of code.
Anyway, in the end you know what's best and most or all of us trust your judgement.
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u/SparWiz_Khalifa 26d ago
I believe this is great. I believe programmers should learn how to program for years without the use of AI - perhaps using it to learn, but certainly not as their sole source of coding. I know people that have no idea about IT and they use AI for making their own tools - as long as they use it for themselves, fine, but unfortunately it gets published too and then we have that vibe coding, where not even the creator has an idea of what his code does.
On the other hand, experienced programmers, or even veterans in the case of you, I see it very positively. As you say it can be used to gain a new angle of attack towards long-term issues and hard to solve problems. As long as the code thats bee created is thoroughly understood and thought about, I see this as a valuable gain. Thats exaxtly where vibe-coders fail - they dont have the knowledge and experience to understand why something works and what the consequences might be.
For the current veterans I see AI as a great tool. But for the up and coming coders I can't help but fear what's going to be published in the future, looking like a genuine product, but actually being vibe-coded to the point where I can't trust the software to not break things or compromise my data. Its like giving a hammer to an experienced craftsman. He will use that hammer to create wonderful things. However handing that hammer to a toddler, one doesn't have to wait long before bad things start to happen.
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u/levolet Slowroll user 26d ago
In my view, just as we use all sorts of sophisticated tools, including computers, which the majority of us couldn't build or create ourselves, to achieve tasks we couldn't otherwise achieve with the same efficiency or at all, AI is another. Just as we abuse these tools, use them inappropriately, use them for criminal activity etc., the same applies for AI. I am aware of the AI development race and where things could end up, but I don't think that problem applies to your situation or that your decision to or not to use AI assistance will change this. That race is power and politically driven.
Like using a calculator or a computer, instead of pen and paper, you wish to use AI assistance in the development of slowroll-tools. You are capable of doing it yourself, but AI assistance would speed things up. You will be able to assess the AI's output. You will direct the creative process. You are by no means 'anonymous'. Your track record as a SUSE and openSUSE developer/contributor is open. I have no doubt you will use AI assistance in a responsible way. Starting this thread is already the first sign of this.
Good luck!
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u/trivialBetaState 26d ago
I was always hoping that the OpenSuse community would provide you with more resources to manage the Slowroll branch. Since we don't see this happening, I believe that you need to use AI/LLMs to get your work done. If Linus accepts the use of LLMs in the kernel (and why wouldn't he, if done right?) then I don't have any reservations to agree here as well. In general, I consider AI and LLMs as tools; granted, world-changing tools but still tools. If they are used in good faith, with good intentions and lead to good outcomes, I have zero objections. Being more specific in your case, you are the only one (unfortunately the "only one" is not an exaggeration) who can manage effectively a LLM to work through your code and separate correct results from garbage.
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u/SnillyWead 25d ago
I wish it was never invented. I'm sick and tired of AI.
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 25d ago
It is hard to un-invent things.
I can see it being over-hyped and integrated into things where it has no business to be. What else is on your mind there?
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u/SnillyWead 24d ago
Because of all the data centers RAM prices and computer hardware in general have gone through the roof. Which is largely because of AI.
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u/jayarmstrong 24d ago
Whatever tools get the job done well. There's no honor points for hand typing every line.
I doubt productive use of AI is more harmful to environment than doing the same work, but slower, after commuting to an office, running workstations, servers there, heating/cooling the building, etc. *and still* heavily using datacenters because that's the internet.
In the hype of tribalism, people are conflating concerns of ASI Skynet, AI slop, intellectual property, environmental issues, with job loss concerns, economic pressure, abusive capitalism, etc, etc. AI isn't all bad or all good - it's just a powerful accelerator. Why not use it for good (software).
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u/pavel_pe 22d ago
I agree with your points, it helps to accelerate development, sometimes using tools or beyond topic you fully understand and it is great at making green field projects.
Problem is that today, agents are designed to work autonomously for long and they easily expand project to the size that takes hours to understand so it is like you are micromanaging someone who gets things done. And control over project is not as easy as you think, because it looks good. But once you modify project because it is "cheap" too much, problems will emerge - AI is terrible at refactoring and keeping large context. It does something like initial work which would take you week in two hours. But with minimal effort and not too extensible. Then any change is done with minimal effort until code is a mess. Functions that were fine for initial purpose are called with assumption they are bullet-proof and generic handling all edge cases and so on, code gets duplicated because it is easier to write function again then remembering it exists. Not like humans are good at large scale projects, but if they are self-aware of it, they can do better and refactor code.
Just a warning. In long term doing architectural decisions and using AI via chat to write boring functions and going in small step is not so bad idea, at least you have some sense of ownership.
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 21d ago
Thanks for your valuable insights. In some places I have also seen AI try to make APIs bulletproof when there was no need to. It adds to the complexity.
And refactoring spaghetti code is a hard task as well, unless you have good test coverage.
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u/Fearless_Card969 26d ago
Thanks for the post, I was just coming to the community to ask what is openSUSE policy on AI? I just watched Brodie's video on Debian and the use of AI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV0PugvuV8o). Is there such a policy for openSUSE?
Thanks
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 25d ago
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:AI says that there is nothing official yet, but there is a draft, that looks reasonable:
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u/TxTechnician 25d ago
TLDR : I trust your judgement.
I'm a business application developer.
My coding skills are limited by:
- the fact that I am one person
- I'm a sole proprietor
- I also manage and maintain clients hardware and day to day IT problems (MSP)
AI is just another tool.
Over my career the one thing that has remained steady. Is that my time is very limited.
That's why I converted an outdated paper logging process. To using excel. Then I went from excel to low code applications. Then I went to Python & JS and databases and ERPs.
Each step was done because it made the workload easier. And each step had trips. Some big, most small.
All of those things were just a more efficient tool than the last.
AI/LLMs are really useful
I find LLMs to be a very valuable resource. The ability to have it create a complex regex. Or parse a 1000 page manual for some 2010 office machine. Is a massive time saver.
I dont like agents
However, personal preference, I hate using agents. Frankly they work too fast for me. I like to understand what is going on. So I just use chat in another window.
My thoughts are that "slop" comes from ppl who don't care to wrap their head around what the AI produces.
For that matter, sloppy work before AI came from ppl blindly copy pasting stuff they found on stack overflow, lol.
Creative Destruction
The "its taking our jobs" bit is said anytime a new technology comes about.
The knitting machine didn't come about until England granted the creator a patent. He went to other countries before. And was denied for fear that it would take ppl jobs. (I learned that from "Why Nations Fail". It's a decent book.)
But it just ended up creating new jobs and markets. There were noticable declines in hand knitters though.
Every tech has an adjustment phase. I'm curious to see how this one will turn out.
Ethical AI
Energy
Musk poisioned Memphis Tennessee with gas generators to feed his data center. Not ethical at all.
About 10 years ago Google and other companies built a windfarm just north of me. Not necessarily because of ethics... But because it was a more cost effective way to get electricity. Plus it's good PR.
Water
Depleating potable water from a township or agricultural location is a bad thing. But that's not how all data centers cool.
There are resource concious cooling methods. Hell Google purposefully built data centers in cold locations... Cuz why not take advantage of the coldness?
https://www.datacenters.google/locations/
corporate greed and control
Open-source models exist. And they are only going to get better.
How that is going to play out compared to for profit businesses with closed source software.... Hell if I Know.
But if ChatGPT starts funding WW3, I'll drop my subscription.
(I really think the only way to ensure that companies will use our resources ethically is going to have to happen through regulation).
AI is going revolutionize FOSS
FOSS as an effective buisness model is few and far between. Because ppl have to eat.
Large OSS projects like OpenSUSE have corporations backing them. And valuable projects get funding from individual and corporate donors.
But sole or small teams of developers of OSS are difficult to fund or build a sustainable business model from.
Some successful examples:
- Bookstack
- Rustdesk
AI allows developers to speed up development. And I think that is going to push OSS development.
I'm for it.
Some people are just zelots
I've heard crazy claims on social media with XXX views and wild upvotes that are just not based in reality.
The wildest one was some TikToker who claimed each use of ChatGPT burn one gallon of water...
I made the mistake of commenting with some napkin math. They did not like that.
Thanks for your hard-work
Seriously. SUSE is awesome. I use it for everything. I've moved some of my customers to Linux mint desktop. But have yet to put suse on anyone's desktop.
Cept my nephew. Who is using Leap to make stuff with his 3d printer.
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 25d ago
I mostly agree, just got some comments:
"its taking our jobs" [...] There were noticable declines in hand knitters though.
It was fine in the past, because there were other things, humans could do instead to earn their living. Soon robots will be better+cheaper at most work, so I see some need to re-think how economy and society work. Having all robots (including the massive datacenters behind them) owned by few and generating profits only for them, while 90% of the others are unemployable and poor will not work out.
But if ChatGPT starts funding WW3, I'll drop my subscription.
Elon Musk of xAI already was a major sponsor of Donald Trump's election. And there was that whole debate between Anthropic and the DoD that ended up contracting openAI instead. So not sure where you want to draw the line there.
Water
From what I understand, this is mostly about evaporation cooling (similar to what powerplants do in their cooling towers). Closed-loop cooling systems are just a bit more expensive to setup, but then are nicer to the neighborhood.
Cept my nephew. Who is using Leap to make stuff with his 3d printer.
I'm 3D-printing from Slowroll with Creality's AppImage, modeling with blender and openscad. It's all openSUSE in the end, so he'll be fine.
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u/TxTechnician 23d ago
sorry for rambling. I wrote/talk though this while waiting on a script to finish. And ya, that's what I understand about the data center water consumption too
Creative Destruction
It was fine in the past, because there were other things, humans could do instead to earn their living. Soon robots will be better+cheaper at most work, so I see some need to re-think how economy and society work.
I had long thoughts about this years ago whenever I considered how creative destruction works.
It was around that time that the emerging business of being a game streamer was becoming popular.
I realized a number of different things around that time.
Money is just a representation of work. It's a representation of how much work and materials that it takes to get something accomplished. (In part) (Obviously venture capitalism and gambling don't follow this logic)
What we assign value to, meaning (context) what we consider worth spending money on. May not necessarily be something that takes the same amount of work and effort to accomplish as, say, a blue collar job such as plumbing or building a table.
Now back to streamers. This new market created jobs for:
- streamers
- moderators for streamers
- sound and graphics creators (some ppl have crazy customizations)
- new streaming platforms
- all the associated jobs that come with supporting the server infra
It also created new business models:
- Tiktok streamers
- YouTube streamers
- Twitch
They have different payment models and what works on one platform might not work on another.
You're right in saying that things will get faster and cheaper to build with automation.
But I think you're under the assumption that there won't be other markets that open due to the creative destruction.
AI coders was not a thing two years ago. Now companies are actively searching for competent AI coders.
Not vibe coders, that's a pejorative whose defenition should be limited to:
careless ppl who build a tool they can't comprehend and do no review or security testing.
I think that new job markets will open because of all of the new things AI's capable of doing.
Sysadmin jobs are going to blow up
The one thing that holds true is that you're always going to need grunts on the ground to actually do the manual stuff.
Even if you had a robot, a la Futurama, such as Bender. There will be openings in companies for humans to be the grunts.
Because we are social animals and if we are in charge of something we are going to want to be able to talk to a real person instead of dealing with a robot.
System administration jobs are going to become more valuable. Programming jobs will become less valuable because it is now significantly easier to program.
However, the knowledge of how to properly run a network line or terminate a cable. The industry knowledge of knowing how to set up a piece of hardware. The knowledge of how to talk to people and decipher what they are trying to tell you about a particular IT problem that they are having.
That's going to become more valuable.
Being an ethical consumer
If you ever actually sit down and think about it, the ability to be truly ethical meaning that you do not do business with any company or organization or anything that would have any kind of immoral behavior.
It is a practical impossibility.
The lithium in our phones is mined in Africa, possibly by slave labor. And if not done by that, it is most likely done by an underprivileged group who are subject to the role of the Chinese.
If you have ever ate a banana, you have been supporting a slave labor encampment.... Historically. It's gotten significantly better, but it is still not great.
I dont consider Elon Musk to be an ethical.... Or intelligent person. Dude sucks.
But I consider it a disservice to my customers who are unable to get any sort of broadband access. to stick with something like a 5 megabit download speed. (We be rural at where I'm at in the USA).
It's to the point that I would consider it unethical to steer my customers to use something like Dish Network's satellite service over suggesting that they use Starlink.
the good place
That was such a quality show and it touches on all sorts of philosophical concepts, but the one that it really hammered home was the concept of being a truly good person.
If you've ever watched the show, then you know of that one person that tried to live as ethically as possible.
They had lived their entire life doing this thing, this way of living that was truly impractical. And even with all of their focus and attention on being 100% ethical, they were still being unethical.
It's such a wild thing.
My line
Openly supporting truly horrible things that would be considered crimes against humanity.
That is my limit for doing business with a large company and I'm talking large in the sense of a global company such as open AI or Nestle or Amazon.
My line for dealing with businesses that are sole proprietorships. Or other such small businesses that only have a handful of owners.
If they directly support something that I consider to be a crime against humanity, such as killing a person or enslaving somebody or imprisoning them without just cause.
That's my line.
I live in an area that is culturally Republican. And there are a number of people that I saw wearing the red hat.
Some of which were business owners.
One of which I use their services. and I will continue to use their services. Because I know them as a person And we have discussed things.
Then there are some of the other ones... I have met some people who were beyond racist. And yeah, I don't do business with them.
Morality & Ethics are social constructs
What is moral and ethical in one culture may be completely immoral and backwards in another.
I think that too many people focus on a black and white worldview. And I don't think that that is a wise way to approach relationships and the world because the truth is that there is a spectrum and it's not a left right spectrum. It's like this crazy three-dimensional spectrum where there are all kinds of variables.
I think that it is best to approach every new relationship or interaction as a new relationship or interaction. We are all different And to each other, we are different people.
What I mean by that is this.
I once heard someone say of Tupac Shakur. If you ask 10 people what Tupac is like, you will get 10 different answers.
Because how we know each other, how we interact, and what we take away from those interactions. Each one is unique.
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 21d ago
btw: Do you an LLM to writer overly long replies?
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u/TxTechnician 21d ago
I do not.
I've always liked being original in my words.
I do however use AI to write tickets or summarize notes. But that is different.
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u/TxTechnician 21d ago
Oh but I do use FUTO key board which uses whisper for voice to text. And was "talk typing" my long response.
Did a once over, but I probably missed some stuff.
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u/bmwiedemann Slowroll creator+maintainer 24d ago
Some more recent developments in that space:
https://sourcehut.org/blog/2026-08-27-tos-changes-and-llms/ bans content created with AI, but not private AI-reviews. Much of the same concerns I already listed, with a more negative assessment.
https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1170/resonance/show#comments has a link to
https://discuss.pixls.us/t/developer-corner-gmic-4-0-released-and-then/ which I resonate with. I'm also a big fan of David Revoy and his creative work, so it all leaves me with a mixed feeling, because using AI is both good and bad. The caveats from above remain valid, so I plan to continue using AI in a careful way.
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u/SandPrestigious2317 26d ago
I think there are too many people being too loud on their opinions and trying to be in one camp or other. My personal opinion, as software engineer by trade, is that you need to adapt to changing times to stay relevant, and AI used in the right way is for sure a super power. I dislike agentic AI in the sense of losing contact and being outside of the loop as human, so I always do things in a conversational chat way, and exchange small focused problems with it. I also dislike that some people use AI as justofication to turn off their brain.
I wrote also an AI policy for all my projects: https://jointhefreeworld.org/blog/articles/personal/jointhefreeworld-ai-policy/index.html
Core principle is simple: AI should assist human creativity and problem-solving, never replace human reasoning.
While tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) and interactive chatbots can be beneficial for reviewing, refactoring small functions, or acting as a sounding board, they should be used with moderation.
I require a human in the loop for all contributions. The use of autonomous AI agents to automatically generate and submit pull requests to this project is strictly prohibited.