Upgrade StoragePlease reconsider the use of generative AI in Zotero's development
For anyone unaware, Zotero has implicitly adopted an AI-inclusive policy for code submissions and has embraced generative AI contributions via Claude. This has led to an apparent acceleration of Zotero's development, albeit at the cost of stability. For me, Zotero has become noticeably slower and buggier since its older versions.
I have recently encountered several concerning bugs: (1) Upon selecting a folder, a PDF appeared in the contents which was not supposed to be there and which persisted upon selecting a different folder. (2) When highlighting a folder in the sidebar, the highlight will persist even upon deselection.
While these issues are arguably minor, it will only get worse as more "agentic" slopcode is introduced into the codebase. Moreover, I note that the number of bug reports on this forum appear to have increased dramatically since earlier versions, which makes me very concerned about the future of this project.
As a user, I strongly object to the current state of things. I do not want to be saddled with these performance problems or user interface bugs. I want a stable codebase, written and understood by humans, with a more sustainable development cycle.
I call on the Zotero maintainers to reconsider the use of generative AI. I request they adopt a new policy prohibiting the use of LLM/generative AI contributions. I further request that the maintainers prioritise refactoring and cleaning up the codebase.
I have recently encountered several concerning bugs: (1) Upon selecting a folder, a PDF appeared in the contents which was not supposed to be there and which persisted upon selecting a different folder. (2) When highlighting a folder in the sidebar, the highlight will persist even upon deselection.
While these issues are arguably minor, it will only get worse as more "agentic" slopcode is introduced into the codebase. Moreover, I note that the number of bug reports on this forum appear to have increased dramatically since earlier versions, which makes me very concerned about the future of this project.
As a user, I strongly object to the current state of things. I do not want to be saddled with these performance problems or user interface bugs. I want a stable codebase, written and understood by humans, with a more sustainable development cycle.
I call on the Zotero maintainers to reconsider the use of generative AI. I request they adopt a new policy prohibiting the use of LLM/generative AI contributions. I further request that the maintainers prioritise refactoring and cleaning up the codebase.
Thanks for your reply, although I feel my concerns have been too quickly dismissed or even outright ignored. I've been using Zotero for over six years, and it is indeed my impression that there are a greater number of bugs, certainly based on what I've encountered. Take that or leave it for what it's worth, but it's a concern I'm raising here.
More substantively, my points regarding the use of generative AI still stand. My concerns are not specific to Zotero; others have similarly objected to the use of generative AI for coding. I believe the use of LLMs/agents will be actively harmful in the long-term. I feel that the best I can do is push back here. Please do not use generative AI in the development of Zotero. Please reconsider this policy.
Moreover, I believe these concerns are not unrelated from the accelerated release cycle, since one of the major arguments in favour of generative AI is faster production cycles. I personally value stability and maintainability of the codebase far more than additional features or an accelerated release cycle, so I would also support reconsideration of this policy.
If there's one thing I did not say in the original post, it's that I'm frustrated by Zotero's governance structure. I do not have any say in what policies are adopted and which features are prioritised, aside from raising issue or requesting features on this forum. That Zotero is open source is little reassurance to me, lest I become a contributor or act as quality assurance.