Linux Foundation survey highlights low-quality AI pull requests

Linux Foundation Research has found that generative AI is delivering productivity gains in open source development while adding to maintainers’ workloads. In a survey of Linux project maintainers, 25% of incoming pull requests were estimated to be low-quality submissions described as “AI slop.” The findings reinforce developers’ concerns about the burden of handling AI-generated contributions.

A majority of project maintainers, 59%, reported growing contributions to open source software. For contributors and maintainers alike, generative AI boosts productivity by up to 50% across all types of open source development tasks. Those benefits coexist with growing pressure from poor-quality submissions, a tension that has fueled debate within Linux-related projects.

The findings point to a need for stronger AI governance in open source development. Priorities include clear contribution policies, standardized attribution and verification, and continued investment in human mentorship.