[OSGeo-Discuss] Request for a moratorium on AI/LLM use within OSGeo

[Javier Jimenez Shaw]

Hi

I am also worried with the impact of AI in our community and in the
software development in general (and many other aspects as well). I find it
very risky, and people going into it without any caution.
Other technologies in the past were also dangerous at the beginning, and
the society learned to deal with that risk. But the speed of introduction
of those technologies was extremely slow compared with AI, letting us more
time to learn those dangers and take the proper measures.
To be clear: they are still risky. Not the same person uses a knife,
dynamite or enriched uranium (just as an example). But still a knife, that
we use daily, needs some training and safety measurements. We don't five a
knife to a baby; we don't give drugs at the school door; but we are giving
AI to anybody for anything. And extremely cheap.
AI is fuelled by gazillions of dollars, as it never happened before in
history. It is incredible. Just to introduce a very expensive technology
(completely subsidized nowadays) that... do we really need it? Making us
more productive is really a need? Is our live changing that much? No, we
are all just more stressed, having to be more productive in a useless race
against... what?

Many people say "we check the code, we review the PRs". But don't be naïve:
there is not way to seriously review all that code and read those horrible
PRs.
Others say "with LLMs I can finally contribute to that project in a
programming language and/or topic I have no knowledge". Well, maybe you
should not contribute there if you do not have the knowledge. Seriously.

As a default position I also think we should be "better not AI". Are there
good usages of LLMs? Yes. Are them the majority? In my opinion no. I prefer
a moratorium until we have a better perspective. Until we digest the
impacts of the current situation. And we do not overstress some projects
with a flood of PRs and issues that are not helping.
Recently I saw in a project an issue created by a new github user, and the
day after the PR by other new github user. What are they doing? It was
obviously coming from the same origin. The issue was itself telling the
proposal. Why was not the same person doing the PR? Maybe because it was
not a person?

Why that hurry? Why do we need to be faster and faster?

Javier.

On Thu, 8 Oct 2026 at 20:05, Even Rouault via Discuss <
discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> (sent both to discuss, and CC'ed to board mailing list for information.
> Please keep the discussion only on -discuss)
>
> I don't think the current position of the foundation of not taking a firm
> stance on the matter of AI/LLM, and let each group decide, can be held
> anymore. It is becoming increasing clearer that penetration of AI within
> our community is toxic, and require each group to go through the painful
> process of defining its own position about the topic, which is very
> complicated and drains a lot of energy among community members. Recently
> TorchGeo (https://github.com/torchgeo/torchgeo/pull/4116) and QGIS (
> https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Enhancement-Proposals/pull/387) had to go
> for a full ban of AI/LLM use, both for coding and communication, given the
> difficulty to frame what exact use of that technology could be acceptable.
> I've also noticed in the incubation committee that nearly all recent
> submitted community projects have been largely vibe-coded, which seems
> incompatible to the criteria we expect of community projects, but the
> committee lacks clear guidance on how to proceed.
>
> Open source has always been about doing things differently from others,
> and I believe that on AI, we must resist to the trend of embracing a
> technology that has so many unknown consequences, and already very nocuous
> ones. This falls under the precautionary principle.
>
> A moratorium on AI/LLM use in all OSGeo venues (projects, committees,
> communication channels, conferences, etc.) seems to me to be to be the
> prudent approach. At least as a by-default policy. Each group could
> potentially reframe it, but by default, I believe groups should be
> protected. In some time, when the implications of using those techs will be
> better understood, and the landscape will have cleared up a bit, a
> potential relaxation can be discussed.
>
> Even
>
> -- http://www.spatialys.com
> My software is free, but my time generally not.
> LLMs contribute to global warming and brain rot.
> Let's guillotine them! "Ah ! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira !"
> Initiator of https://fuckaifoundation.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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