Project-wide LLM policy

[clarfonthey]

View all comments

Preface

A lot of discussion has occurred in private about the topic of LLM policy, and while some of that context has been included in the prior art, most of it is intentionally omitted here.

To keep things focused on policy, there are two broad categories of comments we'd like to request you avoid:

• Simply stating your viewpoint on LLMs, even if you provide reasons. While these arguments can be useful for the RFC, they are better worded as explicit suggestions to specific areas of the RFC, rather than as just general comments.
• Debating others' viewpoints on LLMs, or calling others out on their viewpoints. Again, we would rather these be focused on specific policy points and the merits of those points, than just general bickering.

In general, defer to the code of conduct.

This RFC is long, and most of it is the sections surrounding and justifying the actual policy, rather than the policy itself. You are both welcome to and encouraged to skip around using the outline feature on GitHub. (In the rendered view, this is the bulleted list button on the top-right of the file view.)

While I have received a lot of feedback that the RFC is perhaps too long, a lot of the sections that might be considered for removal constitute important arguments that have been mentioned. In terms of discussion on length alone, I would appreciate that these arguments be directed on potentially simplifying the text of the policy itself, rather than just removing sections of motivation. Similarly, if you feel a particular argument could be expanded or added, feel free to mention that as well.

In general, I know that this RFC is going to be exhausting, and the discussion before it has been too. Removing details is not really going to help, although I'd be happy to accept any feedback on revising the text of these sections to be shorter without losing any meaning.

Important

Since RFCs involve many conversations at once that can be difficult to follow, please use review comment threads on the text changes instead of direct comments on the RFC.

If you don't have a particular section of the RFC to comment on, you can click on the "Comment on this file" button on the top-right corner of the diff, to the right of the "Viewed" checkbox. This will create a separate thread even if others have commented on the file too.

Existing policies

Right now, this policy is also proposed concurrent with multiple policies which are scoped to specific teams/repos:

• rust-lang/rust repo policy: Add an LLM policy for rust-lang/rust rust-forge#1040
• crates.io team policy: Add AI tools policy crates.io#13726]
• rust-analyzer team policy: Adopt uv's AI policy rust-analyzer#22505

This RFC intentionally does not supersede any scoped policies; those policies are free to be merged before this one. In fact, even if after an RFC is accepted, they can still be merged, since updating the policies everywhere takes time, and getting a policy out immediately is still a net benefit.

Once an RFC is accepted, things can be adjusted for consistency.

Summary

This RFC proposes a strict policy regarding generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), and their use within the rust-lang organization. It aims to minimize the harm done by LLMs by reducing both the extent they're used and the control they're given over the Rust project. The policy can be summarized in the following checklist with terms that will be defined throughout the RFC:

1. If the LLM usage is trivial, it is completely ignored by the policy and always allowed. Generally, this means that changes made by LLMs are indistinguishable from those made by humans, where the LLM didn't have any creative input into the change.
2. If the LLM usage is slop, it is considered spam and moderated accordingly. Generally, this means submitting changes made by LLMs with minimal human intervention.
3. Any potentially non-trivial LLM usage must be disclosed in ideally as detailed as a manner as possible. This may necessitate additional tooling to notify new contributors about the policy and explain how disclosure works.
4. If a contributor is found to be using LLMs in a non-trivial way, but correctly discloses this, then a contribution is merely rejected without any additional action.
5. If a contributor does not fully understand the code they submit, their contribution may be rejected for that reason alone. Note that such usage is not always considered slop, and is considered separately. (For example, they may understand a large portion, but not all of it, which shows that they still put in a lot of effort.)
6. If a user is found to be repeatedly lying about LLM usage (using LLMs in a non-trivial way without disclosing that usage), this is a COC violation that will be moderated accordingly.
7. In general, as long as users are demonstrating an earnest effort to reduce LLM usage, even if said reduction is not total, then they should be commended for that instead of punished, even if the project itself draws the line at non-trivial usage for accepted contributions

In terms of additional tooling for disclosure, this RFC encourages the creation of a bot that automatically replies to contributions from new users informing them of the LLM policy and what constitutes sufficient disclosure. As mentioned, in general, going into as much detail as possible (e.g. prompts used, etc.) is preferred, but not always required. The RFC leaves the exact details of such implementation unspecified and up for revision later.

Rendered

[clarfonthey]

Since this change is big enough to be worth noting in a separate thread:

in short, non-trivial usage is now disallowed. Disclosure now acts as a way for contributors to justify that LLM usage did not affect the output, i.e., was trivial.

The main motivation for this was the recent news that the Colossus data centre in Memphis, explicitly cited by this policy as an outlier because the industry has not been so overtly evil, now powers Claude Code, the model that basically everyone on GitHub is using. Now, it's clear that most LLM users on GitHub are directly doing harm harder and faster than before.

Sure, there are other models, but I doubt many people will switch. The arguments laid out here do explicitly support a more restrictive model regardless of this news, and this is only additional justification for going all-in.

It's impossible to look at all the things the AI industry does in a good light. The only possible way is to argue that the ends justify the means, and even then, I would say that anyone who isn't a climate denialist and a racist would at least consider switching away from Claude Code toward a different model.

Overall, the reception of this RFC has been overwhelmingly positive, and I'd like to thank the numerous people who've personally reached out to thank me for what I've done so far. You're the folks who make this worth it.

There may still be a few parts that feel weird to read in light of these revisions. As always, please feel free to point them out on the diff.

GitHub is being weird. I already merged these changes, so, it's weird it's showing them as unaddressed.

[imyxh]

Whatever it means to you to hear this from the outside: I sympathize greatly with your frustrations here and I appreciate your work more than you can imagine. Please take care, please feel better.

[lumi-me-not]

Thank you for all the work you've done. I also really appreciate it.

Take a break if you need to, take care of yourself. If you wish to vent, feel free to reach out.

Wishing you the best.

[clarfonthey]

So, it appears that somehow the root of this thread got hidden because of a direct report to GitHub, which is extremely concerning. For now, you can read it on rustbot's view, since it appears that GitHub implemented this (likely new) feature very poorly. But note that not even the moderators can unhide this comment, and I'm not even sure org admins can either. Will have to investigate, but, since Rust Week is this week, might take a while.

[olivia-fl]

So I understand that my voice does not have very much weight here, since I have only made fairly minor contributions to rust. I do not currently intend to make any future contributions due to the project's external appearance of support of LLMs. I am very strongly in support of this policy, especially now that it has been changed to ban non-trivial LLM use entirely. If it were accepted I would consider contributing to the project again. This is both because of the requirements it would impose but also, more importantly, because it takes the extensive ethical issues seriously rather than pretending that they do not exist or are somehow irrelevant to the practice of software-making. Seeing this gives me hope.

View changes since the review

[lumi-me-not]

I also have been thinking of contributing for a while, and having a policy like this would be very encouraging for me. I want to contribute to projects that care about ethical issues.

[jplatte]

As another contributor who hasn't done that much¹, I am in the same boat.

¹ a couple refactors towards const generics during libs blitz, some std API improvements / additions

[spookyvision]

thirded, I find pro LLM stances extremely offputting, have made minor contributions to Rust, rust-analyzer etc. in the past, and am absolutely not motivated to further engage with an ecosystem that is welcoming towards this technology.

[clarfonthey]

Also just clarifying, I explicitly mentioned I appreciated this being posted despite it potentially falling under:

• Simply stating your viewpoint on LLMs, even if you provide reasons. While these arguments can be useful for the RFC, they are better worded as explicit suggestions to specific areas of the RFC, rather than as just general comments.

I think that pointing out the sheer number of people who have been outright turned away from this project because of its inability to reject LLMs and their harm is important. So, as long as people keep their comments on this specific point confined to this thread, I think it's fine.

[Cyborus04]

I'm in much the same position. I won't contribute until a policy at least as strict as this one is adopted, and honestly even then, I'd still be hesitant to so long as pro-LLM voices are in positions of power in the project.

[NthPortal]

I'd like to voice a similar sentiment: I started learning Rust seven(?)-ish months ago, and I've rapidly fallen in love. while I haven't contributed yet, I became a core contributor to/maintainer of the last language I fell in love with, and have already contemplated contributing to Rust once I have a bit more experience reading and writing it. if this policy or another that is similarly strict against the use of LLMs is adopted, and I otherwise feel safe in the community, there is a good chance I will contribute. if Rust adopts a policy that is permissive of LLMs, I assuredly will not contribute

[Zireael-N]

I haven't contributed to the language myself, but Rust is a language that I really like. It's been my go-to language for personal projects for the last 6 years, it's a language I advocate for at my workplace. And seeing rust-lang/rust-forge@14956c3 made me rather disappointed.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to those of you who have contributed and are taking a stand right now. You are appreciated. ❤️

[oli-obk]

We (leadership council) are taking this off our nomination list. We don't have something concrete to discuss about it at present, but it can be renominated once the rust-lang/rust policy is merged (or otherwise handled) and there is a concrete ask of the council.

[clarfonthey]

I was honestly not expecting it to get nominated in the first place, so, that makes sense, although I would assume that the LC would be the ones on the FCP unless I'm mistaken.