Juliette@jrf_nl@phpc.social

Hear, hear!

I've been proclaiming this exact point as part of my "Resurrecting the Dead" talk.

Code review of GenAI PRs is no longer about training the next generation of potential maintainers, making it just a time sink, sucking the joy out of being a maintainer.

Well done AI companies.
OSS can't survive without community, so destroying the communities is a great step towards destroying open source (in favour of the AI closed garden where tokens costs 100x what they do now)....

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

Code reviewing was never the most interesting thing to do. But it had one important element. That, if done right, it was knowledge exchange between the reviewer and the coder. That can be quite motivating. Helping a fellow coder to become better. Reviewing "AI" written code does NOT come with that potential reward. The machine doesn't learn the way a human does. This turns code review into a menial, fruitless task that leads to frustration instead. That's my observation and opinion.

1/2

Ben Ramsey@ramsey@phpc.social

Replying to @jrf_nl@phpc.social

@jrf_nl @elazar The fact that AI can’t learn is one of the worst parts about using it. There are certain things that are so prevalent in the training data that any amount of “memory” files stressing the importance of doing things a certain way will not overcome the tendency to follow what it was trained on.

One of those things is using commas instead of concatenation operators in PHP echo statements.

Matthew Turland@elazar@phpc.social

Replying to @ramsey@phpc.social

@ramsey As it happens, I came across this article today, and think it makes a similar and relevant point, albeit in a round-about and likely unintentional kind of way.

"Retrieval is the wrong tool for finding code an agent can fetch itself, and the right tool for remembering things an agent has no way to rediscover from the repo as it stands today."

A limited and often lacking ability to curate and navigate memories heavily curtails the usefulness of models.

qodo.ai/blog/we-built-a-state-

@jrf_nl

QodoWe built a state-of-the-art RAG system for code review. In Qodo 2.4, we took most of it out.Read about We built a state-of-the-art RAG system for code review. In Qodo 2.4, we took most of it out. in our blog.
Matthew Turland@elazar@phpc.social

Replying to @ramsey@phpc.social

@ramsey @jrf_nl I do appreciate the validation that AI has brought to the best practices that have become established over the last two decades or so: the importance of context in architecture and implementation, documentation and automated tests as first-class deliverables, static analysis tools, etc. I think it's given me a new appreciation of the fact that what makes developing software easier for us also makes it easier for AI agents.

Juliette@jrf_nl@phpc.social

Replying to @elazar@phpc.social

@ramsey @elazar I favour building community and upskilling people over using a completely unethical tool just because it is convenient, so, to me, forbidding any kind of AI usage is still the right choice.

Especially for software which requires a lot of contextual knowledge to create a good (correct) patch, like PHP_CodeSniffer. Even more so, knowing that PHPCS is used by AI to "keep it honest" 😄

Jul 5, 2026, 15:18 UTCen
Matthew Turland@elazar@phpc.social

Replying to @jrf_nl@phpc.social

@jrf_nl Such deskilling is admittedly one of the technical/social drawbacks to which I was referring. It does take strong intention and discipline to use AI as a tool rather than a crutch, and that aspect of using it almost certainly has a more substantial negative impact on engineers with less practical pre-AI experience to lean on. As with many things, there's no silver bullet solution; it's all about trade-offs. @ramsey

Matthew Turland@elazar@phpc.social

Replying to @jrf_nl@phpc.social

@jrf_nl For what it's worth, I agree AI is a net negative (for me personally, at least) in a number of aspects, be they technical, social, economical, philosophical, etc. That said, I'm also unfortunately not really in a position with my employment where it's feasible to decline use of related tools completely. I speak out when and where I'm able (e.g., advocating for hiring junior engineers), but in terms of day-to-day work, AI has become the new normal, for better or worse. @ramsey

Juliette@jrf_nl@phpc.social

Replying to @ramsey@phpc.social

@ramsey @elazar I'm "lucky" in that regards, poor (self-employed OSS maintainer), but at least nobody can force the use of AI on me.

I do get very very very very very very very tired of continuously having to tell people to RTFM (CONTRIBUTING guide) and to follow the "no AI allowed" rule.

Company policies will probably only change once AI companies start charging realistic prices for AI usage. The trouble they will run into then is: where can they still find skilled people to replace AI ?

Matthew Turland@elazar@phpc.social

Replying to @jrf_nl@phpc.social

@jrf_nl I've made similar arguments advocating for hiring juniors, because I'm sure seniors will eventually pass on or retire, and that will leave a void to fill. The value of engineers today is largely based on their ability to look at AI-generated code with a skeptical, informed, and discerning technical eye. In that respect, AI has very much been a short-term gain and prospective long-term loss that's only yet to bear out. @ramsey