this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
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Programming

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I'm trying to feel more comfortable using random GitHub projects, basically.

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[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't listen to the idiots downvoting you. This is absolutely a good task for AI. I suspect current AI isn't quite clever enough to detect this sort of thing reliably unless it is very blatant malicious code, but a lot of malicious code is fairly blatant if you have the time to actually read an entire codebase in detail, which of course AI can do and humans can't.

For example the extra . that disabled a test in xz? I think current AI would easily be capable of highlighting it as wrong. It probably wouldn't be able to figure out that it was malicious rather than a mistake yet though.

[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean anything is a good fit for future, science fiction AI if we imagine hard enough.

What you describe as “blatant malicious code” is probably only things like very specific C&C domains or instruction sets. We already have very efficient string matching tools for those, though, and they don’t burn power at an atrocious rate.

You’ve given us an example so PoC||GTFO. Major code AI tools like Copilot struggle to explain test files with a variety of styles, skips, and comments, so I think you have your work cut out for you.