Adopt an AI policy

[bouweandela]

Using AI to do research and write code is becoming more and more popular. It would be good to have a policy on what we expect from contributions that have been created with (the help of) AI.

Opinions anyone? @ESMValGroup/esmvaltool-developmentteam

[bouweandela]

My proposal would be to do something similar to NumPy: https://numpy.org/doc/stable/dev/ai_policy.html.

[katjaweigel]

I like the NumPy policy in general, only one point I would modify a bit: It says "If so, you must document which tool(s) have been used, how they were used, and specify what code or text is AI generated." We kind of have the same rule in an other context an I found it difficult in praxis, because I remembered that I used an AI tool sometimes (DeepL, for translation), but I did not use it on whole text blocks, rather on short phrases within the the text - but I did not remember where exactly. The same issue one could have when copilot is used.
Therefore maybe something like: "If so, you must document which tool(s) have been used, how they were used, and specify what code or text generated by AI or with AI support." would be easier to follow, because in this way one could say "within this text this an AI tool was used to help with translation/improve grammar/improve code/whatever" although not the whole text is AI generated?

[alistairsellar]

I also think that the NumPy policy is broadly appropriate for ESMValTool, particular that at it's foundation is the human "responsibility" to understand and explain the code and to actually interact with the reviewers.

At the same time, it's important that everyone in the community is respectful in GitHub comments, even when talking to a bot or agent, because the tone of our language on GitHub reflects (and influences) the culture of our community. So I'd suggest that we add some guidance/tips for reviewers on approaches to take when they suspect that the policy has not been followed. And for similar reasons I would recommend that we replace the term "AI slop" with "AI generated and of little substantive value".

[bouweandela]

Example of an AI generated contribution: ESMValGroup/ESMValCore#3189