r\/opensource, Reddit\u2019s primary \u201csubreddit for everything open source related,\u201d has banned all AI-assisted and AI-related projects. The users on the subreddit are not taking the ban well. However, not all of the comments appear to be from LLM lovers, as the moderators\u2019 decision to also ban users who \u201cdon\u2019t speak English\u201d has upset most of the community that supports the AI-related restrictions.<\/p>\n
As reported by The Verge<\/a>, the subreddit\u2019s October 24 post<\/a>, titled \u201cYour tokens aren\u2019t valuable: No more AI,\u201d features four new main rules: all projects must now be at least \u201c1 year old,\u201d have \u201cmultiple contributors,\u201d be posted by someone who must \u201cspeak English,\u201d and cannot be \u201cmade by\u201d or \u201cintended for\u201d AI.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot to go over here, but the ban on AI is simple; as the subreddit\u2019s moderators explain, \u201cAI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community.\u201d Unsurprisingly, this is the part that\u2019s upset the majority of the users in the thread.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is orthogonal to open source,\u201d reads the top comment. \u201cIt\u2019s OK to not like AI but it doesn\u2019t change whether something is open source or not. I guess Linux is no longer allowed here? Linus uses AI for kernel development now. This is a ridiculous stance.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the moderator who posted the new guidelines stated in a separate comment<\/a> that the overwhelmingly negative response is due to \u201csome guy on twitter claiming to be alternative news\u201d who posted an \u201copinionated editorial pointing hundreds of people to the thread.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the timing of when the thread was posted, alongside the fact that the X post in question mentions \u201cthe Linux kernel,\u201d they are presumably referring to this<\/a> post by The Lunduke Journal. The moderator may be correct, as almost all of the top comments on the post are from users who have never posted in r\/opensource before. The fact that Epic Games\u2019 Tim Sweeney commented on The Lunduke Journal\u2019s post also probably didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n Yet, regardless of whether you\u2019re pro-AI, anti-AI, or otherwise just ambivalent to AI, some of the users in the thread do raise some understandable concerns with the new rules. For instance, one user noted<\/a> that their project, which has been \u201cactively maintained for nine years, has 300+ stars on github, resolved dozens of issues for, and uses exactly zero AI,\u201d would not be allowed on the subreddit anymore due to them being its \u201conly contributor.\u201d<\/p>\n