[QGIS-Developer] Floating an idea: ban AI based contributed from non-core developers?

[Nyall Dawson]

Hi list,

I'd like to float an idea for discussion: that we explicitly block all AI
based contributions from non-core developers.

As background, currently we have the "human in the loop" policy in place
regarding AI contributions (see
https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Enhancement-Proposals/blob/master/qep-408-ai-tool-policy.md
). This policy was already locked in, with the feeling that it was a good
first step that we could later refine and build upon.

I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I personally now think that we
need to further tighten our AI policy. To be clear upfront, I am not
approaching this from societal or environmental perspectives, but rather
from my own direct experience with using and testing these tools. In my
direct experience, regardless of the tool used (including Claude, gemini,
etc), the results are NOT reliable in all situations. There's still massive
amounts of hallucinations, missteps, convoluted and unstable code generated.

Yes, in the *right hands* these tools can be a time saver. But to do this
safely you *have* to have a thorough understanding of the code you're
working on. And that doesn't mean just understanding the small piece of the
code that you're feeding into the tool, but rather a wide understanding of
the WHOLE codebase and architecture.

QGIS isn't some little toy hobby project that's appropriate for people to
learn open-source, git, vibe coding, or to build their personal portfolio
from. It's a *professional tool* which is used for real world applications,
and those applications potentially impact projects with million $$ budgets,
or with potential risk to human life and safety. That's not hyperbole --
it's exactly what GIS is for!

So, as a practical way to protect the QGIS application and its users, I
think we could refine our AI policy to be "contributions using AI tools for
development are banned for all non-core contributors".

By wording things this way, we don't explicitly prevent AI driven
development from all contributors. Rather we limit it to the subset of
contributors who we've formally recognised as having an extensive
understanding of QGIS code, architectural design and development practices.
These contributors are those who *do* have the skills required to
critically analyse the output of LLMs and guide them when the results they
give are unsuitable.

I fully admit that this isn't a perfect policy. But I can't think of any
other practical way to differentiate AI developed contributions which HAVE
been critically assessed vs someone just slopping together a fix for their
immediate needs. It would be a ridiculously huge burden and responsibility
on the overworked review team to expect them to do this at review time 😱.

Soo.... before I try to propose it as a formal revision to QEP 408, what's
everyones thoughts on this? Does anyone have any alternative policy ideas
to propose?

Nyall
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/attachments/20260401/27f62cbe/attachment.htm>