AI disclosure [was: AI slop "contributions" to IETF working groups]

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 11-Feb-26 00:37, Christian Hopps wrote:
> Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
>> On 08-Feb-26 14:55, John Levine wrote:
>>> It appears that Bob Hinden  <[e-mail]> said:
>>>> I like the idea of requiring a disclosure that an Internet Draft was written with AI tools.  I agree probably not for emails.
>>> I expect that the people whose drafts most suffer from being written by an LLM
>>> will lie about it, either because
>>> their English is too poor to understand the rules, or they have perverse incentives like an an employer that
>>> gives them a bonus for publishing an RFC.
>>> Then what?  I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask, but I’m saying we need to be
>>> prepared for noncompliance.
>>
>> Of course, but if we make it a submission requirement - check the “AI used” box - there’s really no harm, no shame.
>>
>> Actually there are perhaps two boxes to check:
>>
>> 1. Was AI used in the production of this draft? [yes/no]
>> 2. If yes, did the authors personally verify the AI-generated material? [yes/no]
> 
> So we’ve been discussing this recently in the FRR development community, and we decided sort of the opposite direction. We require a review and approval for all code pull-requests before they can be merged. Since a code submission will either be good and acceptable, or it won’t be, the fact that AI tools were used to a greater or lesser or no extent really doesn’t matter and we didn’t think it should affect the accept/reject decision.

For code, I agree, this is a rational policy (as long as the code is licensed without warranty).

For documents that may end up as contractual requirements or as footballs in intellectual property disputes, I think we have to be asking for disclosure. I am definitely not a lawyer but I think that the legal status of ideas originated by an AI is still very unclear. It's rather like claiming that my cat invented a better mousetrap - who owns the IPR, and who is to blame when the mousetrap breaks?

This is quite distinct from the original question about AI slop disrupting IETF discussion, so I changed the subject.

     Brian

> So anyway, while we’re (IETF) considering requiring disclosure of AI tool use here, I think it’s worth considering what exactly we’d like this disclosure to accomplish. Is it a filter flag (i.e., if checked “Yes” it get’s dropped to /dev/null by a personal email filter)? Does it help in reviewing the document knowing that AI tools were used.
> 
> I *think* what’s being looked for here really is a filter-flag to allow people to ignore submissions with the “wrong” disclosure (e.g., “AI was used, Author did not review” :) In this case everyone is also going to realize that that’s what it’s being used for. Given that, do we really think someone who is willing to post a document as their own work, but also not review that document themselves, is really going to also be honest and admit that? I have my doubts.
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris.
> 
> 
>> The attachment was generated by ChatGPT.
>>
>>     Brian
>>
>> [2. image/svg+xml; qq.svg]…