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Re: AI slop "contributions" to IETF working groups

Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org> Tue, 10 February 2026 19:49 UTC

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Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:49:50 -0500
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
To: Job Snijders <job@bsd.nl>
Subject: Re: AI slop "contributions" to IETF working groups
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References: <7b702e8f-d2be-5b08-e262-33fbed538f98@foobar.org> <460BCE12-4C45-45D0-94C8-83B8E2D45049@gmail.com> <922b6d08-1cb5-4791-974f-ff17850de25f@gmail.com> <5DCE2993-39C8-4FAC-AD91-7B8E504E996C@gmail.com> <20260208015537.8D945F5944ED@ary.qy> <cd492277-0bca-4219-a3ad-eb75ccd2ebe7@gmail.com> <m27bsk6d9c.fsf@ja.int.chopps.org> <LV8PR11MB85368F13DB28716954D33DABB562A@LV8PR11MB8536.namprd11.prod.outlook.com> <aYsjGf510EyllHUS@feather.sobornost.net>
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On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 12:22:49PM +0000, Job Snijders wrote:
> Or not! Who knows what the machine was hallucinating and where it stole
> the content from? 

I see that as a major issue.  If a document is written with AI assistance,
then how can the author claim it to be their own work?  Not only don't
they know that, they *can't* know that -- because none of the companies
producing these are transparent about what source material they're using.
(And with good reason, they stole almost all of it.)

And if we go one step past that, consider what happens when the IETF accepts
such a document, and then at some point later the real, original author of
the material that wound up in it via some AI scraper steps forward and claims
ownership -- what happens then?

I think it's better to avoid this entirely and insist that we all write our
own documents, comments, flames, whatever -- because then it's very clear
who's accountable and where the chain of authorship ends.  (To be clear,
yes, I'm suggesing a ban on the use of AI.)

There's another reason for this that Job touched on and I elided when
quoting: what happens when, over time, more and more of the content is
AI-generated, and less if less is human-generated?  What will happen
to the pool of expertise?

> FWIW, I already consider it a problem. As Nick pointed out, in various
> WGs we're faced with AI-generated I-Ds and then (from different
> 'people') also AI-generated 'review' emails.
>
> So things are turning sour: AI-generated reviews in response to
> AI-generated drafts... the quality and substance aren't there, and the
> messages are jarringly fake-polite and unauthentic.

I share this concern.  Our current situation reminds me very much of
40-ish years ago, when a nascent problem some of us called "mass mail abuse"
was annoying but relatively small.   It didn't stay that way.  These
problems never stay that way, and most of the time, the rate at which
they spiral out of control is higher than even pessimistic estimates.

> Sending someone a flowerly wall of AI-generated text could be perceived
> as a lack of respect. It easily turns into a volumetric attack on WGs.
> There is a lack of balance between the effort on the sender side and the
> burden it imposes on the receiver side.

It was certainly perceived that way by Rob Pike, and I agree with him BTW:

	F*** You! Co-Creator of Go Language is Rightly Furious Over This Appreciation Email
	https://itsfoss.com/news/rob-pike-furious/


---rsk

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