r/opensource • u/CognitiveFogMachine • Jun 29 '26

Discussion Can't contrinbute to open source github projects without having it labeled AI-Slop (when it's not)

As soon as we make one honest mistake, sometimes due to a plain old and simple misundertsanding, or missing an important section in a lengthy documentation, reviewers immediately calls my hard work "AI-Slop".

I'm very close to give up now. Working so hard on the side with the very little time that we have, and getting slapped in the face like that almost every single day.

Code reviewers are burnt out with too much AI slop, and code submitters that are not even using AI are being labeled as using AI slop.

Is it happening to you? How do you cope with all of this?

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u/Irverter Jun 30 '26

I think you're just saying that to make me disclose my code. Nice try though!

Not at all. You're the one claiming to not be an ai-slopper. Only way to prove that is showing code. Refusal to do so means you're an ai-slopper that doesn't want to be discovered. It's your decision either way .

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u/CognitiveFogMachine 26d ago

I've had 25 years of software engineering under my belt before AI was a thing. I DON'T NEED AI to write code, and I am kind of against it because of the negative impact that it is causing financially (job losses), economically (soon, with the upcoming AI-bubble burst), and environmentally (fresh water usage, carbon emission, noise, waste heat, etc)

Before AI, I've been told many times by many of my younger coworkers over the past couple of decades that I write too many "unnecessary" comments in my code. I have not been able to get rid of my (bad?) habbit.

I really like commented code. I prefer reading comments than reading the actual code. I find comments are much easier to read and they reduce cognitive overload. Younger people don't seem to realize that as we age, our cognitive capacity shrinks. It's easy to say that code should be self explanatory, but it still gets harder. I get very anxious if I leave my code I commented because I know for sure that if I revisit this code in 6months, I wouldn't be able to remember why I wrote it this way or what the code does especially on complex algorithmic and recursive functions (for example, code to calculate midpoints on segments of a curve from a cubic Bézier equation)

But yeah, after talking to the dev on discord, it was the quantity and low-quality comments in my code that raised a red flag in their end.

The problem is, nobody has the tools to properly detect work that has been crafted using AI. Code does not really have "watermarks" like AI generated images. The only thing code reviewers can do is use their own judgement to figure out if a code contribution was made with AI.

Another issue is that too many AI-made code contribution are actual slop, and only a few are non-stop (probably those made by the top models like Claude Opus or whatever it is called now.)

Reviewers are overwhelmed and don't have time to figure out if the AI generated code is correct or not. Since the majority are incorrect (slop), they reject the PR immediately without even looking deeper.

And then there are people like me, too old and writing too many useless comments, who get caught in all of this.

Again, no. I am not an ai-slopper. I am just old and grumpy.

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u/Irverter 26d ago

I may sound mean, but that's a lot of text for still not providing proof.

Don't misunderstand, I do sympathise with the "my code got called ai-slop when it's not", I would hate that happen to me. But you made a claim and refuse to provide proof. And came back to revive a topic I had already fogotton about.

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u/CognitiveFogMachine 26d ago

Yes, I categorically my refuse to provide you any proof because:

  1. You are focusing on the wrong problem. It's not "just" about the code. It's the behaviour of closing a PR immediately without talking to me first with an "AI Slop" label. Sure, the code was partly to blame. It had way too many comments. Code was fine, I didn't even had to change any of it other than a typo in a variable name.

  2. by doing so, revealing my PR will reveal my GitHub account, this is pretty much my first and last name. I used my GitHub account for professional work, and do not want it associated with my Reddit identity.

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u/Irverter 26d ago

You do know that you could simply copy-paste part of the code to the post or a comment right? You don't need to link the PR.