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Lift the blanket ban on new contributors using AI --- but emphasize that low-quality PRs can be closed without discussion. This allows flexibility to accept useful PRs, but retains enough leeway to deal with slop quickly.
kim-em
reviewed
May 7, 2026
kim-em
reviewed
May 7, 2026
kim-em
reviewed
May 7, 2026
| Using artificial intelligence tools to generate code is becoming more and more common. While this can be practical, their use also poses ethical, ecological, legal and social concerns. We recognise that there are strong differences in opinion on this topic. That said, while individual action alone will not address these concerns, we ask you to consider the effects of your AI use and if it is truly necessary. | ||
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| We do not accept pull requests opened by new contributors where code is LLM-generated. Mathlib intentionally has very high standards (on generality, integration with the remaining library and maintainability, including code style). As of April 2026, AI-written code fails to meet that bar by a large margin. Getting code to mathlib's standards requires understanding and writing Lean code by hand. If you just want to help and not put in the learning effort, making a PR to mathlib is counterproductive: the effort required from the mathlib maintainers is larger than the benefit, because the time used to improve the quality of the code will not result in a better quality in future PRs. More generally the reviewer team may close a PR containing low-quality code if it appears to be AI-generated. If we notice that you open several PRs without putting in this learning effort and without adhering to our community ethical standards, we retain the right of banning you both from opening new PR's and from the Zulip chat. | ||
| Mathlib intentionally has very high standards (on generality, integration with the remaining library and maintainability, including code style). As of mid-2026, AI-written code fails to meet that bar by a large margin. Members of the review team reserve the right to summarily close without comment any low quality PR, especially if the author has made little effort to directly engage in the community in a discussion about its merits before opening the PR. |
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"As of mid-2026, AI-written code fails to meet that bar by a large margin."
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"As of mid-2026, code written by an AI without the supervision of a Lean subject expert fails to meet that bar."
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Given the slop I've seen, I think that is too friendly a phrasing.
(But indeed, the purpose of the sentence is not to say anything like "Kim's AI-generated PRs are crap"; that would be very false.)
grunweg
commented
May 7, 2026
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Lift the blanket ban on new contributors using AI --- but emphasize that low-quality PRs can be closed without discussion. This allows flexibility to accept useful PRs, but retains enough leeway to deal with slop quickly.