Yeah. Maybe it’s time to adopt some new rule in the selfhosted community.

Tho I chafe against rules and regulations, I realize they are necessary.

I just want some say in what I install on my computer. And not be fooled by someone into using their software.

Me too. It’s why I try to carefully pick seasoned projects, and I don’t jump on the bandwagon just because it’s a new twist to an old solution. I selfishly want others to be my beta testers. LOL Hey, I admit it. Also, I am truly thankful that there exists in the community, those who can and do look at the code and understand the issues involved. I do not possess those skills. I know a limited amount of code and use it for me locally. I would never dare publish it tho. I’m too afraid of what the ramifications would be should someone use my code and the wheels fall off their server. I would feel very responsible. It’s the reason I do not even publish my notes to a wiki of some sort.

Some devs are afraid to admit that they used AI to help them code because there’s so much hatred towards using AI to code.

I would say there is a lot of truth to that statement. The backlash is immediate and punishing. I’ve said before, I think there are a lot of young devs who would like to contribute to the opensource/selfhosting community, but lack the experience.

Here’s the disclosure you need: all projects you see have involved AI somewhere, whether the developers like to admit it or not. End of. The genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in. Railing against it really isn’t going to change anything.

I’ve said it before, AI is here to stay. It’s not a fad. Kind of like when the internet first started to become publicly available. Lots of people deemed it a fad. It’s now a global phenom and it is the basis by which we do business on the daily, minute by minute, globally. I do think that AI needs some heavy governmental regulation. It would be great if we could all play nicely together without involving the government(s). Alas, we don’t seem to be able to do that, and so, government(s) has to step in, unfortunately. The problem with that is, imho, surveillance capitalism has worked so well that governments also want to take a peek at that data too. I have nothing to back up that conspiracy theory, it’s just a feeling I get.

FWIW, I’m not against using AI as an assistant for coding (I do it too, using Claude and Vercel as assistants) just as long as the code is reviewed and understood in full* by the dev before publishing. *my emphasis

A very sane take. I do wish devs would fully disclose this on their github or other. That way, if the project is seasoned, well starred, et al, and the dev used AI as an assistant, then the user gets to decide. Given all the criteria are met, I would deploy it.

I will say that I have observed what seems like a pretty decent up tick in selfhosted apps, and I would be willing to bet a goodly amount of them have at the very least, used AI in some capacity, if not most/all code. I don’t have any solid evidence to back that up but it just seems that way to me.

The effects on the environment

Didn’t down vote you. I hear this line of complaint in conjunction with AI, especially if the person saying it is anti-AI. Without even calculating in AI, some 25 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually from streaming and content consumption. Computers, smartphones, and tablets can emit around 200 million metric tons CO2 per year in electrical consumption. Take data centers for instance. If they are powered by fossil fuels, this can add about 100 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Infrastructure contributes around 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

Now…who wants to turn off their servers and computers? Volunteers? While it is true that AI does contribute, we’re already pumping out some significant CO2 without it. Until we start switching to renewable energy globally, this will continue to climb with or without AI. It seems tho, that we will have to deplete the fossil fuel supply globally before renewables become the de facto standard.

I run quite a few containers, and I just can’t find anything I’d like to add that would be functional. I’m always tinkering tho, and learning. The learning part is my favorite.

Every time this comes out, it’s like I was a kid waiting for my Pop Sci & Mech mags to arrive in the mail, and later on Byte magazine. The downside is, after you get your server setup and functioning, there’s not much to add to it.

storing backups on the host being backed up is ill advised

I’ve had this notion for a long time. I do store backups on a separate drive on the server, but those are replicated almost immediately, elsewhere. I learned my backup lesson quite a while ago and I do not wish to repeat that disaster.

Never tasted myself.