KDE prepares new guidelines to limit the use of AI in its code: it will be allowed with manual review

Artificial intelligence can help with many of the tasks we perform in our daily lives, whether at home or at work. But it has gained a certain popularity and relevance within collaborative development environments, sometimes providing an indispensable tool to perform this work better and with greater productivity, but on other occasions rejected by other companies. Other companies stay in the middle with an ambiguous opinion such as KDE.

KDE will allow the use of AI to program with manual code review

The company behind this graphical environment for Linux is beginning to take measures regarding the Artificial Intelligence assisted programming. The guidelines are more flexible than other companies such as GIMP where they have banned this practice for their code base, and is similar to others such as the code for the Linux Kernel, which supports the use of AI-assisted programming with nuances.

KDE Plasma seems to be taking this path, where the AI can help program this environmentbut as long as the work is completely manually reviewed. Specifically, the document states that “Don’t be lazy” and that contributions made as a result of AI can be ignored or closed. From KDE they demand that in the contributions contributed no one should know if you have used AI, since the code should be indistinguishable as if you had written it by hand.

The use of AI-generated text for confirmation messages or responses to questions and comments. Developers must be responsible if their code is generated by AI and it is prohibited to use this excuse for poor or low-quality work.

KDE AI guidelines still in development

The draft with these guidelines is still in development while the final points are debated throughout these days. A final version will be added to the KDE documentation, but in the meantime we can check what this says so far code of conduct regarding AI-assisted programming booming.

The document has caused such controversy that it has been closed until the editors receive more comments on it, and where only the KDE developers themselves participate, since they will ultimately be the ones who must apply and comply with the guidelines written in this future document.