Zig Bans AI: Andrew Kelley Criticizes 'Unnecessary' Contributions

Zig, an open-source programming language, has recently made a radical decision by banning the use of artificial intelligence for coding, editing, or debugging. This ban was announced by Andrew Kelley, president of Zig, who expressed severe criticism of AI-generated contributions, labeling them as 'worthless.' Kelley clarified that these contributions are not only useless but also have a negative impact, as they consume valuable time from the review team.

Zig is maintained by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a network of contributors. Any programmer can submit code to its repository, as long as they adhere to a code of conduct. One of Zig's rules prohibits the submission of AI-assisted code. The policy is clear: no contributions generated by a large language model (LLM) will be accepted, nothing paraphrased from an LLM, and nothing edited, brainstormed, or debugged by an LLM. In summary: AI must stay away.

During a podcast with JetBrains, Kelley described these AI-assisted contributions as 'inevitable waste.' He stated, 'People send us contributions that have no value.' Kelley added that these contributions have a negative value, as they take up review time from the team. Code contributions are reviewed by a small number of key team members. This is the 'bottleneck,' as Kelley puts it: there are more pull requests than reviewers. At the time of recording, Kelley mentioned that Zig had 200 open pull requests.

These 'waste contributions' generated by AI further slow down the entire team, he said. 'We have wasted everyone's time.' Although Zig is relatively small, it has had a disproportionate impact. The language has been used to create Bun, which was later acquired by Anthropic. The AI ban has subsequently caused tensions between Bun and Zig.

AI-assisted code has infiltrated Silicon Valley, thanks to tools like Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. Some use AI to edit or modify their code; others use it to write it entirely. Major tech companies have set ambitious goals regarding the percentage of code that should be — and already is — written with AI.

Zig is not mandated to be as efficient as these public companies. Instead, 'mentorship' is part of its core mission, Kelley stated, making AI contributions counterproductive. 'We are all trying to improve at programming,' Kelley said. 'The people who send AI-assisted pull requests, those people are not helping that goal.'

These AI coders are 'transient contributors,' those who may submit one or two pull requests but will never join the core team, Kelley explained. The AI ban is also simpler. Kelley stated that if he tried to say that only 'good' AI-assisted pull requests would be accepted, reviewers would have to judge each one. 'If he says none in particular, then it's a very easy policy to enforce,' he concluded.