From: Lars Eggert <lars@eggert.org>
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Subject: It'll come back to personal relations more (was: Re: Controlling the
 flood of 'AI slop' independent Internet-Draft submissions)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2026 09:05:55 +0300
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Hi,

I believe the issue of fully or partially AI-generated IETF =
contributions is here to stay.

(Let=E2=80=99s not open the can of worms of whether they *can* actually =
be IETF contributions, given that we require licenses be granted to the =
IPMC.)

I don=E2=80=99t see  a future in which the AI genie is fully being put =
back into the bottle, and AI can be useful in accelerating standards =
work if used responsibly and correctly.

(Again, without opening the cans of worms on whether how training =
material was/is being sourced, what AI is doing to society in general, =
etc., etc.)

I also don't think that tooling, -00 submissions restrictions, etc. can =
be more than a stopgap. I think they will help some with preventing =
DDoS-like events. But I also think we=E2=80=99re just generally going to =
see more contributions by more participants - which is not inherently =
bad, we=E2=80=99ve been discussing how to grow the community for decades =
now.

The issue is of course the initial quality of those new contributions, =
and the amount of community time needed to review and vet them. This is =
pretty much the exact problem we have in open source, where PRs are now =
cheap to generate and the cost is shifting to core review, which is not =
(yet?) similarly cheaply done.

For myself, this will probably mean that I=E2=80=99ll be quicker to =
ignore or disregard new contributions from folks I have not had a =
history with, unless maybe I see someone else I do have a history with =
meaningfully engage. Or whether the contributions is squarely in an area =
I care a lot about.

If more people in the community will do this, which I think is not =
unreasonable, the downside may be that the IETF will become *less* open =
to new participants, and not more. Genuine new participants with =
worthwhile ideas will have a harder time being spotted in the =E2=80=9CAI =
slop=E2=80=9D, and that=E2=80=99d be a shame. How can we fix *that*?

Thanks,
Lars


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