LLM (AI Generated) Contributions

[Samillion]

Generally I don't mind AI generated contributions. I know there is a lot of controversy around this topic, but for a project like ModernZ it should be fine.

I've discussed this with several ModernZ and mpv contributors and mostly they feel the same way. However, there is a huge downside if you fully rely on LLM (AI) without knowing what it's actually doing.

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A good example: #689

Edit: The PR doesn't exist anymore. I believe the person was reported because they were spamming multiple repos with AI generated nonsense, so their account and everything they posted were removed.

The PR was fully generated by Claude, which refactored with the following message:

Don't use mp.get_property_bool() as it is deprecated since mpv 0.37

However, it was never deprecated and is actively used in mpv official scripts and is documented in the official manual.

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If you do decide to use LLM to contribute, please consider the following:

• If you have no lua or coding background, avoid relying on LLMs to make contributions. Instead, open a feature request issue and include your findings with LLM, it might help speed up the process
• Never assume that LLMs/AI know facts, they're often wrong because they need to be told what to do exactly, what to expect and what not to do.
• I honestly have no idea if this will help, but, include questions to LLM like:
  • is this worth doing? have you analyzed the code base to make sure this would work?
  • give me references on why these changes were made
  • can the code be optimized or simplified? (especially if it's a huge refactor)
  • ... and so on

The bottom-line is: AI can seem exciting, but it can place a burden on you (the contributor) and the maintainers. Because even if the initial PR is accepted, the maintainability always falls on the active contributors or repo owners.

Just look at the PR history in ModernZ, very often where one feature is added, we have to keep fixing and optimizing it over and over. Rarely done/maintained by the original author of the PR.

I would genuinely love to see if LLMs can optimize, simplify or clean up the code base. Unfortunately I don't have any AI subscriptions, but I'm sure it can be very beneficial if done right.

Nevertheless, don't let this be a limitation on your contributions. This is merely to help you and everyone, whether it's to contribute to ModernZ or any other project.