Been a long time Debian user but with the recent AI decision I am planning on moving on so anyone have an anti-AI recommendations? I understand its being used in the kernel as well but are there any distros taking a full anti-AI approach to the parts of the code they control?
Since folks seem a little confused on what I am referring to here is the mailing list page regarding the use of gen ai without disclosure vote: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/08/msg00360.html
Phoronix article on it: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Votes-Responsible-AI-Use
Linus himself said the linux project is not anti AI and if you dont want AI in Linux, fork it.
I you are ready to make an exception for the Linux kernel you might as well make an exception for the Debian distribution which is the basis of a lot of stuff.
Gentoo?
I’m not sure why you think Debian is embracing AI
They took a nuteral stance on it
I wouldn’t call that neutral. Allowing it with no disclosure sounds like embracing but trying to hide it.
I am probably gonna ditch linux all together because the creator has been infected by genAI ( used LLM to heko debug, which is a big sin in my codebook ), so I have been trying NetBSD. I got it installed last night, but now I need to figure out how to get xfce4 to be default desktop environment I boot into.
Someone else listed a no-ai OS website, so I am gonna look into some of the other BSDs there as well.
You may as well abandon life altogether, because life has been “infected” with reality.
And reality is shapes by our actions. We work hard enough and we may and genAI forever best case scenario. Worst I’ll take is societal values equating genAI with CP levels of degeneracy and depravity.
You’re deluding yourself, friend, and will only cause you more pain in the long run. Eradicating AI is as likely as eradicating computers themselves. I mean, I’m not going to delete the dozens of models off my devices, and I’m just one person. Accept that innovation is here, and find a winnable battle to focus on.
The problem is I am optimistically delusional, so I firmly believe it is a winnable battle. I refuse to give up, even if it means becoming the poster person for the movement. By any means necessary, I believe us people ( the non genAI users not included because they ain’t people ) must win the war.
Also, you’re talking to a stubborn autistic 'tard, so it’ll be nearly impossible to change my stance on this due to my autistic passion level of hatred.
Given Debian’s slow development and focus on stability above all else I doubt this will make any practical difference to contributions that actually end up in releases. And honestly at this point every OS or piece of software needs to have AI reviewing its codebase for vulnerabilities, even if it’s not making any code contributions.
What about commits by Russians? Or Israelis? Or MAGAts? Or Libertarians? Or Climate change deniers?
What you are doing is not okay. You’re deliberately engaging in divisive action for no logical or beneficial reason.
They don’t care. They’re hypocrites, filled with irrational hatred. Card carrying members of the “AI Hate Boner” club and that’s all they care about. Their hatred for this narrow facet of technology gives their lives meaning.
Oh my god, you cannot be serious.
Get off the cross; we need the wood.
You may not have noticed, but this is literally a thread about people who want to change operating systems because of the tools the creators use to develop it.
That’s like wanting to move out of your house because you found out that the builders used Ryobi or DeWalt power tools, instead of defunct manual tools by ‘Spear & Jackson’ or ‘Klein Tools,’ because in your mental illness, you object to the power tools that are taking jobs from human hands, completely ignoring the fact that there is still a human in the process, operating the tool. Or you argue that the power tools ‘stole’ all the knowledge of how to be used by the manual tools the came before them. Or whatever hilarious excuse you’ve made up to justify boycotting innovation.
It’s lunacy.
Nah, that’s a bad analogy.
It’s more like wanting to move out of your house because you found out that the builders were in fact subcontracting out their work to unaccredited randos off the street who made a bunch of building code violations and don’t truly understand how to build structurally sound buildings. It’s not about power tools. It’s about the competence of the builder themselves.
And you’re also handwaving away the very real ethics and licensing issues that stem from using models that were trained by scraping all of GitHub without any consideration for project licenses whatsoever, in addition to potential legal issues down the road, stemming from said usage.
It’s not lunacy. It’s a real thing.
Your analogy doesn’t track because there’s no one new being introduced into the process, just the same people using newer tools.
There’s zero ethics and licensing issues, in my humble opinion, any more than there are ethics/licensing issues when a builder watches documentaries on public broadcasting to learn how to build. The knowledge is ingested and incorporated, not copied and redistributed. However, I’ve argued with enough anti-AI zealots to know I’ll never convince you otherwise, so I won’t even try.
It is very real lunacy. Time will tell, I’m just trying to save people the heartache ahead of time. It’s likely a lost cause, but at least I tried.
@Epp @gravitas_deficiency Oh, you’re being an absolute prick to everyone in order to help them? How selfless of you, surely no one appreciates the sacrifices you make to help others.
Thanks, Scott, I’m glad you recognize my contribution. Your opinion, specifically, means a lot to me.
Edit: you’ve had your account for four years, you’ve made a grand total of three comments, and one of them was to chastise me? A third of your Lemmy existence has been devoted to me… I’m touched.
For the people who really don’t want AI in their OS, check this.
Ooh, that’s one I hadn’t seen. Thanks for sharing!
So . . . maybe it’s a good thing that Gentoo with GNU Hurd exists? Does Hurd even have an AI policy?
Hurd doesnt even know AI exists.
This shit’s hilarious. It’s like boycotting companies where they’ve voted to allow people to breathe oxygen.
Everything will have AI in the future, and it’s impossible to discern when it was used. Attempting to ban it is hilarious because it can’t be enforced since it’s undetectable, so the ban is completely ineffective. It’s just pandering to luddites.
At least it’s amusing to watch.
You realize that you’re in a tech sub right?
You realize that Lemmy doesn’t have subs right?
It’s more convenient than saying community.
This is actually a pet peeve of mine too, either go back to Reddit or get with the lingo.
How?
3 characters vs 9. 1 syllable vs 4.
No, my Lemmy client combines the comments from all the subs for a post into a single view. You may be replying to this comment from a tech sub, but that’s not the view I have.
Some things should never have AI because it makes them worse. Your toaster, fridge, toothbrush bedside light, sofa, monitor, bicycle, mouse, keyboard, etc. Adding AI to these makes them strictly worse. Of course the same is true in software. If you have software that does what you want now, poisoning it with AI is purely destructive.
And then there are mixed cases. You could throw in AI and possibly solve some problems or add new features, but maybe your cure is worse than the original issue, and maybe most people don’t like the new features… So then in the commercial world, the bosses will force you to add AI to drive sales, because version bumps sell product, even if the general public thinks it’s shit.
But hey, you do you. Say it is inevitable. Say it will be everywhere when we didn’t need it to get what we already have, which is quite amazing already. I think reality shows our skills and proves you wrong.
I can name reasons for every single one of these devices to have AI that would make them better. You lack imagination.
Here’s a few:
Toaster - it can determine the heat and duration needed for the bread/bagel based on the thickness and density, without needing to manually guess the settings
Fridge - aware of the contents so it can set the thermostat at the ideal temperature range, even better if it’s in control of internal flaps to automatically compartmentalize the contents for optimal storage
Toothbrush - able to scan your teeth while you better and inform you if your brushing was adequate or if you missed any plaque, on which teeth, and warn you of developing cavities
Bedside light - aware of if you’re in the bed, and whether you’re attempting to go to sleep, or are asleep, based on preferences and rules you give it beforehand, in plain language
I could keep going, but I think my point is made. You either lack imagination, or you’re scared of innovation, but your limitations should not hold back everyone else. I’m glad Debian is bravely embracing the future for the good of all the users, instead of hissing at the dawn of a new era, and retreating to the darkness of the past.
Did you really compare using AI to breathing fucking oxygen? We will see if AI will be everywhere once the money runs dry and subscriptions increase hundredfold to compensate for the costs.
I did. It’s going to be ubiquitous. I know the majority of Lemmy wishes it wasn’t, but wishing doesn’t change anything.
Every single of the involved companies could go bankrupt and it wouldn’t change a thing. I mean, I have several different models on my phone, depending on my planned usage, and things are just starting to gain momentum.
We’re all super impressed
By what? Are you just easily impressed and assume everyone else is, too? Your response is a mystery 🤔
I agree, but is it ever going to conpletely dissapear? I understand and loathe how big corps are pushing their bubbles to maximize profits and run with the money, I am for forbidding massive datacenters and everything that will just make all of us and the planet worse, but once all that passes and the dust settles, llm and such are tools, are they going to dissapear? I myself see them as a tool, as a hammer, not to be used for cooking, laundry and such, but a tool nonetheless, is banning the whole thing realistic? Perhaps I am missing much info here though.
As a person who agrees with you:
Can you at least try to be convincing instead of coming off like an asshole?
I would, but I’ve spent months being belittled by people on Lemmy insisting I’m wrong. Only those people with that attitude would be offended by my tone, so it seems appropriate, no?
Nothing wrong with being a Luddite, the movement was originally for workers rights and not removing thousands of years of handed down artisan craft that was being industrialized. We both know technologies like this are being used to concentrate wealth. I’m personally not against AI as long as its used in moderation, but insulting those who want to boycott because they see the harms of wide scale usage is simply ignorant, much like your comparison to the Luddite movement.
I’m against AI when it replaces human art, or substantially degrades quality
I don’t see code at art, and AI code sufficiently reviewed by a human isn’t bad quality. Saying that as a dev myself
AI code with sufficient review is good enough for Torvalds, good enough for me
That being said, I hate AI websites. They all look so generic. Claude especially really has a style it uses every damn time. Web design is at least partially art, and AI sucks at it
I don’t see code at art
A lot of people see programming as “type the right instructions in order to do a job”.
But that’s not what “programming” is. It’s a process: take an idea, break it down to parts, translate those processes into code, then put it all together in a way that works. You can write countless variations of code that all accomplish they same task,but someone that’s good at programming will do it in a way where the parts fit together elegantly and efficiently.
I’ve looked at beautifully written projects and messes of sloppy illegible code the technically “work”. There’s a difference: one is the work of artists and the other isn’t.
Painters do the same thing when they take an idea and turn it into smears of paint on canvas. The only difference is the medium and tools.
Okay, then, Neo-Luddite/technophobe. Specifically, the people who are opposed to the technology for sake of being opposed.
I personally believe that governments should implement an AI tax, so that the technology created with the combination of everyone’s contributions actually benefits everyone. However, whether that happens or not, the technology isn’t going anywhere. And it’s not detectable. So being in opposition to it is pointless.
They should oppose data centers, or specific uses of AI (such as for military purposes) but a blanket opposition to the technology itself? It’s moronic.
👍 Here’s a star: 💫
Thank you, Experimental Guy. I’ll put it on my fridge to remind me of the time I got a star from you.
I don’t think you know what a distro is. You’re going to need a distro that doesn’t include any packages that accept AI contributions, which is impossible to detect and enforce.
Arch, Void, Gentoo, Chimera and Aeryn all have anti-AI policies.
Do you know where I can find the Arch policy?
I must have misremembered it because I also can’t find an official AI policy.
But the devs have banned LLMs in their issue tracker, at the very least:- https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/onnxruntime/-/work_items/18#note_460864
- https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/mkinitcpio-systemd-tool/-/work_items/3#note_503832
- https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/python-huggingface-hub/-/work_items/43#note_504464
I recommend:
No AI there.
This is the only answer.
What about
?
No, that harms the environment somehow, I’m sure of it.
Oh! I know. It’s “fascist technology” because Texas Instruments is ownes by rich people.
Texas Instruments make weapon system.
There you go. Stick with the abacus. It’s the only way to be moral in his world. Of course, that’s assuming you don’t have a problem with the trees that died in its creation. To be WHOLLY moral, you should use rocks on the ground, in the outline of an abacus you made in the sand with your finger. And HOPEFULLY you didn’t disturb the micro ecosystem of the sand when you drew it.
It does use plastic. 🤔
By jove, you’re right! 😱 Clearly it’s fascist technology.
Better stick with the abacus.
i wouldn’t say they’re “embracing AI” or ‘sloppified’… but anyway.
i think slackware isn’t using llm stuff for development. it’s my daily/fav distro. but it’s quite different from debian.
I believe Fedora requires disclosure on the use of LLMs in contributions, and that fully generated submissions are not allowed, so slightly better than Debian in this respect (https://docs.fedoraproject.org/council/policy/ai-contribution-policy/)
Linux Mint is always a nice option, but I can’t find an LLM policy for them, but given that they are removing snaps and other Ubuntu bits that nobody likes by default, I would imagine they are more resistant on LLM contributions. They don’t have a policy set in place for this though.
Arch Linux (and derivatives, I currently use EndeavourOS but many like CachyOS too!) are awesome too if you are alright with rolling release. Again, no LLM policy I can find (I didn’t look very hard though, I have better things to do), but I imagine they would be more resistant to it.
Mint is still downstream of Debian though, which will make them taking a stance against it pretty tough.
