Mesa Project Adds Code Comprehension Requirement After AI Slop Incident (hackaday.com)

Mesa has updated its contributor guide to require demonstrable code comprehension after an incident where someone submitted a massive, ChatGPT‑generated patch claiming a “few percent” performance gain. Mesa developers patiently asked the submitter to reduce the change to a digestible patch and explain it, but the contributor pushed back — prompting a diff from Timur Kristóf that makes clear automated, unvetted chatbot‑to‑upstream contributions are unacceptable. The episode, summarized in a video by Brodie Robertson, highlights how easy access to LLMs can create contributors who lack the programming knowledge to meaningfully participate in OSS, and how projects are moving to guard against noisy or harmful automated submissions. The wider takeaway for AI/ML practitioners is twofold: LLM chatbots can hallucinate or produce unusable patches and must never replace human understanding of code, while purpose‑built “AI‑assisted” developer tools (e.g., ML‑augmented static analyzers) can surface useful, actionable issues if wielded by knowledgeable engineers. Daniel Stenberg’s praise for Joshua Rogers’ list of findings — generated by enhanced static analysis rather than an LLM chatbot — shows the productive path: integrate smart tooling that augments expertise, and enforce contributor policies requiring explanation and justification of changes so maintainers can review safely and efficiently.