Re: AI slop "contributions" to IETF working groups

[Job Snijders <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 12:09:11PM +0000, Rob Wilton (rwilton) wrote:
> AI is a tool that can improve productivity.

Or not! Who knows what the machine was hallucinating and where it stole
the content from? Deskilling does not increase productivity in the
longer term.

> We should allow, probably encourage, usage of tools that increase
> productivity where possible.  One of the drafts (for guidelines not a
> protocol) that I have recently submitted was predominately written by
> AI and it has done a pretty good job (probably much better than my
> first attempt would have been, and significantly quicker).  Yes, I
> obviously reviewed and improved the content in various places before
> submitting, and yes it still requires more work.  When I posted the
> initial draft I made it very clear to those that I was asking for
> reviews that it was mostly AI generated.
> 
> Yes, AI can also produce garbage, just like humans can, and I
> completely agree that just spamming rubbish material to an alias or WG
> is not good behaviour, it just wastes time.

What I've seen so far is absolute garbage. It is both amazing and trash.

> However, whether this will really be a problem is unclear.

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.

> Part of the IETF motto is "We reject: kings, presidents, voting."  But
> instead, I perceive that IETF is built on technical excellence and
> mutual respect.

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.

> E.g., if a respected participant starts sending lots of rubbish AI
> generated messages or documents then they will quickly lose the
> respect of their peers because they are wasting everyone's time.

And then what? There are zero consequences.

Kind regards,

Job