OpenJDK Bans AI-Generated Code in Contributions Under New Interim Policy
OpenJDK Interim Policy on Generative AI
The OpenJDK Governing Board has implemented an interim policy prohibiting contributions containing code or content generated by large language models. While contributors cannot submit AI-generated material due to risks regarding reviewer burden, security, and intellectual property, they are encouraged to use these tools privately for debugging, comprehension, and research. This measure aims to balance innovation with safety until a comprehensive policy is established.
Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models, diffusion models, or similar deep-learning systems.
- piinbinary
> Most generative AI tools, however, are trained on copyrighted and licensed content, and their output can include content that infringes those copyrights and licenses
To some extent, it feels like the genie is out of the bottle on this. There's so much LLM-generated code out there, and I'm sure plenty of it could be argued to infringe a copyright or license (though I think the legal bar for counting as infringement is set too low), that there's no way to go back and undo it.
That said, OpenJDK might be afraid that someone will decide to make an example of them because they are a high-profile target.
- Viliam1234
This makes sense.
AI contribution is basically just "prompt + AI work". Even if you are okay with AI work per se, you should accept prompts (after reviewing them) and let your own AI generate the code (and then also review the code)... rather then accept an output of someone else's AI with an unknown prompt, that may or may not include an instruction to create a vulnerability.
In the age of AI, the prompt is becoming the actual source code. Accepting AI-generated code would be like accepting binary code from unknown source.
- mrkeen
Am I not even allowed to use https://www.oracle.com/artificial-intelligence/enterprise-ai... ?
- kdavis
While I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian.
It states in part:
> Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy:
> Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models...
Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the addition:
> Q: Is it okay to continue using the spell-checking, grammar-checking, auto-completion, and refactoring features in my editor or IDE?
> A: Yes, so long as they are not based on large language models or similar deep-learning systems.
This addition will likely not help as most spell checkers are OS/IDE services and their implementation details are opaque to users.
- pizlonator
How do you enforce this?