Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Annotating patches containing AI-assisted code

["Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 08:01:59PM +0200, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> Em Thu, 21 Aug 2025 17:36:54 +0000
> "Luck, Tony" <tony.luck@intel.com> escreveu:
> 
> > > Do you remember the first time you saw that, and what copyrights
> > > were there? :-)  
> > 
> > Kernighan and Ritche "The C programming language" - First edition.
> 
> I saw it there too, but I probably saw it before that, on an "80 Micro"
> Magazine edition which I don't recall anymore.
> 
> Btw, Wikipedia says it came from a BCPL code (*). So, K&R were not the
> original authors.
> 
> (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Hello,_World!%22_program
> 
> Anyway, the point is: i we weren't trained with such pattern, 
> a printf() with "Hey" or "Hi" would be a more likely answer.

But having engaged in some risky behavior in the past does not obligate
us to engate in risky behavior in the future.

In addition, in happy contrast to AI-generated output, I am not aware of
any in-flight lawsuits involving "Hello, World!".  So I don't find your
example at all applicable to the current situation with AI-generated
output.

> That's said, in the early programming days, I used a lot more
> this pattern (**):
> 
> 	The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
> 
> (**) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over_the_lazy_dog
> 
> with has all 23 English characters. I have absolutely no glue when
> I first saw it, but it was before I got "C Programming Language" 
> book in hands, as I used it for a code I developed in Assembler
> before learning C.
> 
> Yet, as I saw a lot more the "Hello world", I haven't using the
> brown fox pattern for years.

"Sphynx of black quartz: Judge my vow!"

> Anyway, the point is: AI repeat patterns, but it will very likely
> repeat the ones that are used on tons of different places, where
> it is really hard to have any copyrights applied (as they become
> common sense). Humans do the same.

That might well be.  But AI output has been also known to include obscure
text.  And average behavior is not always helpful in legal matters.
For example, I would strongly advise against attempting to get out of a
speeding ticket by arguing that your average speed over the past month
was below the posted speed limit.  I suspect that you would find that
the court would instead look at your instantaneous speed at the time
in question.

							Thanx, Paul