I recommend reading the post by @best_codes that talks about how people are using AI on dev.to.
I wasn't planning on writing the post about it anytime soon until seeing that article. Time to time, I have seen people use AI to write their articles and seeing that it gets more engagement than actually writing it.
Hearing that makes me feel disappointing that we have not done enough to make the platform more genuine, especially where we actually have rules on the use of AI generated content. More information can be found here: https://dev.to/guidelines-for-ai-assisted-articles-on-dev
I believe the use of AI to assist you in writing is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I believe it is best practice to let the reader know that the post uses AI in some degree regardless of if you use it for grammatical checks or fully generate the post with purely AI (which I do not recommend on doing).
We may not see it, but we are a small community where we have the power to make a positive impact on dev.to. We are lucky that @ben and @jess allow us to have the ability to moderate the platform and look out for each other and ensuring we are enforcing the rules. Not a lot of spaces online has that kind of trust in their community as far as I have seen.
As a DEVenger, I am contributing my part to enforce the rule to reduce down the number of fully AI-generated content and ensuring everyone is following that rule of adding the disclaimer that the post uses AI in some degree.
Some of you may agree with me and some may disagree...and that's ok! I believe that quality always beats quantity and I want to ensure dev.to is a genuine place where others can learn from each other and not worrying about engagements.
What can you do as a DEV?
I recommend reading this post about the use of AI on DEV
Make your best judgement and determine if the author is following the rules of the use of AI. If you believe that they are not following the rules, take action by:
- Marking the post as "Low-Quality".
- Inform the author.
- Report the post.
Note: It is always a good idea to communicate to the author first before doing anything. If the user continues to break the rules, feel free to report it.
This is important. Please do not attack anyone on DEV in the process. dev.to is a safe space and should be treated with respect and its integrity. Respect each other and abide the DEV Terms and Conditions and always make sure to think before you act!
Just a PSA I want to share.
For everyone on DEV, I hope you can do your part to make dev.to a great place! Expect Sloan messages to be more active as moderation ramps up. Feel free to share your experience on DEV so far and what can it be improve in the age of AI.
Top comments (39)
We're working on new policies and features to help deal with this issue, and help enforce transparency around automated content when it is okay (i.e. a bot which summarizes github PRs) vs when it is engagement farming or otherwise inappropriate or harmful.
Thanks Ben for the update. We will look forward to it :D
the "more engagement" stat is the interesting bit - if the engagement itself is bots commenting on AI articles, you're just measuring bot-to-bot interaction speed, not reader value. those numbers are hollow.
Facts!
Yeah - the ouroboros metric. Engagement validates itself until you check whether the engaging accounts have any original content or just reaction chains.
Thank you for sending me down a "what is ouroboros" google adventure. 😂
haha the image sticks. makes it hard to look at high-engagement threads without wondering if the snake has already started eating
It is very interesting. Of course, seeing those numbers will depend on each individual interpretation and I do agree it doesn't reflect on the reader value. However, there are some people who are new to DEV and see those numbers as demotivating in some way. Numbers are hollow, like you mentioned, unless there is value to it (which also depends on the reader). Thanks Mykola! Glad you share your thoughts! :D
the newcomer framing is fair — someone with 3 posts and 0 reactions doesn't know if they're invisible or just slow to compound. worth distinguishing read signals (scroll depth, time-on-page) from reach signals (saves, replies). the first is feedback on your writing; the second is community pickup. conflating them is where the demotivation usually comes from.
Transparency is the right call. I’ve been building compression and retrieval tools with Claude AI assistance — and I say so explicitly in every post and forum thread. On encode.su, a compression forum with very experienced engineers, I wrote “I am not a programmer by background. Claude AI helped me implement and debug. The architecture decisions and the core idea were mine.” The response wasn’t dismissal — it was technical engagement. One senior contributor wrote “someone with no coding experience is able to write a functional compressor that can compete with hand-written ones. That is an achievement in itself.”
There’s also something worth adding: AI lets you speak to people across languages and cultures with the right tone. You think in your native language, AI helps you express that — but the idea, the opinion, the experience behind it is yours. You can’t fake that. A bot has no experience to share. If a real person uses AI to bridge a language gap and enters a genuine conversation — the human is still there. The meaning doesn’t disappear just because the words were translated.
Hiding AI use doesn’t make the work more legitimate. Being honest about it — and showing the thinking behind it — does.
I have used it as a translator when someone comments in another language! Very helpful.
I heavily agree with "AI lets you speak to people across languages and cultures with the right tone.". Statistically speaking on DEV, the most users are either from the United States or from India. Whether where you are regardless, having an AI will allow you to express your thoughts because English isn't your native language and I believe it is a great tool to translate your thoughts for others to understand.
The concerns I have is user abusing it. This is a good discussion to talk about because where do we draw the line?
I appreciate it contour! Thanks for sharing :D
Hi Francis,
Honestly, the best people to interact with on here are the ones that write genuine replies and feedback. Like where you can keep a conversation going with quirky tangents which leads to laughs and entertainment. People use this place for many reasons. I think it's ok for people to use it how they want as long as they are not intentionally trying to hurt other users. I feel that some may summarize their code with AI and then share a blog post about it, maybe as a way to share there journey in general, or as a personal log of whatever.
I think we get out of things what we put into them. Generally speaking, I think the ones that want to make meaningful connections, will. And the ones that want to raise cattle or sheep, will. And that's just the real facts about human nature in my opinion.😆
Having an actual community that breathes and has a pulse means taking the time to stop and acknowledge each other's hard work. I think the ones that come here, and other platforms, for generally the right reasons will always be the ones that find value in it. If people are just coming here to dump AI and not make any connections whatsoever, well I don't see that going well.
I also wanna touch on this: I think if users enter a competition and submit something completely written by AI and expect to win with no story, no narrative, and no purpose, thats not a winning post either. I enter challenges not really to win, but to push myself to try something new.
I like playing with CSS. I like spending 3 days figuring out why n8n won't run locally because I had to learn about what a reverse proxy was. All of these challenges we face prepare us for real life scenarios. The real ones, such as yourself, are definitely honorable.
From my standpoint, transparency is the key. Communities are built on trust and honesty.
I think it's good to have an open discussion about the implications of heavy AI use, but I don't think users should be forced to follow strict rules either. But I do get your point about wanting to keep it more blog like and less ai-dumping ground. I don't know there is much we can do about it at the moment. I think we will all find each other. Just takes time! XD
Hey Anna! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
It is one the reasons I am here as well. Getting feedback from other people and making genuine connections. I just believe at this age, it feels more monotone when it comes to content and getting responses and I believe it will lead to people questioning themselves whether that person is real or not. I don't want others to feel that way.
Yes I do agree and this is fine about the use of AI in this case. What I am currently concern is people using AI in their post and not having a disclaimer that they use AI. Additionally, seeing posts that are written in the same style and it feels robotic in a way. Sure, the content is impactful and it is useful. However, seeing it as repetitive feels exhausting.
Make sense and I do agree!
Makes sense as well. If you find value in being on DEV and sharing your work and making genuine connections, that is fine by me. I just want to make an acknowledgement that we should at least enforce this rule.
I appreciate it! I enjoy your content when visiting your blog time to time and I appreciate your work (even won a challenge too)!
True True!
I don't expect people to follow this strictly. @javz warned me to not fall into the Reddit rabbit hole where we are nit picking articles that are AI or not and lash them out.
The goal is to at least acknowledge this rule and at least enforce it. I believe in this current state, we are not doing enough and hearing other people talk about AI slop on this platform makes me feel like I need to make a PSA and take action on it. I want this community to feel genuine and a place to make connections and learn from each other, not to farm engagement just because.
Hope this makes sense. I appreciate the comment and thanks for sharing :D
The same 😜 If I hadn't been banned in other "habitats", I might not have known about this good place, and I'm now wondering, why do we need Reddit, which throws shadow bans and contains thousands of trolls, or... Or is that all I can think of, lol?! 😅 Well, or Discord, which asked me for verification and I spat on it.
Perhaps they use a translator that creates perfect sentences and puts a long dash instead of a regular dash.
btw, your answer makes sense.
Hey Ember! It is quite common for those using AI as a translator. I know that most DEV users are outside of the United States, so it's not the issue. Thanks!
I read both articles and I totally understand your concerns. I’ve also noticed a lot of bot comments during the last few weeks.
I suppose many people suggesting that AI should not be used at all for writing articles are native English speakers, but a huge number of developers are not. Their English level may be around B1/B2, so interacting in discussions or writing short comments is usually not a problem, but writing a long technical article can be much harder.
For example, I’m a native Czech speaker, and our language has very different nuances. When I try to translate my thoughts directly into English, the result often sounds awkward. That’s why I use AI mainly to correct grammar and improve sentence flow, not to generate ideas or fake knowledge, but to communicate my own thoughts more clearly.
That said, in many cases it is and will continue to be hard to tell whether an article was actually generated by AI or whether it contains the author’s own thoughts refined with AI assistance.
I believe the use of AI to assist you in writing is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I believe it is best practice to let the reader know that the post uses AI in some degree regardless of if you use it for grammatical checks or fully generate the post with purely AI (which I do not recommend on doing). - although in today’s environment even mentioning AI usage in an article can sometimes hurt its credibility.
And this is a good use for AI! The language barrier thing. Use cases like this really shine and make it hard to say no to AI. You are a great developer, it would suck to have a language barrier! ( The awkwardness might be fun to poke at - how nuances don't translate well. Hmm. App idea. XD.)
Yes, exactly. There are a lot of great and passionate developers who have this language barrier, and AI actually opens many doors for them.
Yep, in Slavic languages for example (Czech, Polish, Slovak, etc.), there are a lot of nuances that simply can’t be translated well into English 😄 That’s an excellent idea for an app, but I can’t keep up with all the other things I’m working on, so I’ll leave it to others 😅
Haha, I get that! 😅🤣😶🌫️
I was thinking about something like what you mention last night lol "although in today’s environment even mentioning AI usage in an article can sometimes hurt its credibility.". It is interesting to see from the writer perspective. I guess if you are using it to correct grammar, then no need to mention it. In my opinion, if you are using it to the point where it is not correcting grammar anymore and you are rewriting everything, then that is where I draw the line.
Everyone on DEV is fine since I see almost everyone use AI to correct their grammar and articulating their thoughts more clearly. I mention to @yasha1971coder comment that I do agree the use of AI to translate your thoughts since I do agree that there are some DEV who are outside of the United States or English is not their first language. This is totally fine and a good use of AI (agreeing alongside with @annavi11arrea1)
Thanks for sharing @gramli! Appreciate the work you do :D
I have noticed a lot of bot comments on my posts for some reason .. last year, I used to call out like bro just write without AI lol (who cares about grammar). it has gotten worse & not just on devto. I see it everywhere, even on reddit.
And that is the reason why many people have stopped writing here. some weeks I see good quality discussions, while other times I mostly see spam...
I do see the same here...though it is less on my posts than anything but still. I don't want to call out unless there is 100% proof that it is an AI being written completely. If anything, Flagging/reporting is the only way and should be handle by professionals that has the tools. Moderation gives us a lot to work with, but feels so little if you are the only one caring about it.
Thanks Anmol for sharing :D
Very timely post.
I myself often don't even make grammar checks using AI, let alone publishing fully AI generated posts - this is evident from my very very low publishing volumes, LOL 😁
However, To be perfectly honest, I don't care if someone publishes AI generated posts, even if they are 100% AI generated, as long as the post:
Besides, as LLMs become more capable, soon we won't be able to differentiate anyway!
So, what's the point! 🤔
That said, reducing the number of posts each account can publish per day, is still useful, as it helps keep spams in check.
Other than that, I don't think there's much we can do.
Sure, we can ask for honesty, but how would you ensure that other people will comply?
I dont run spellchecks either. Im really awful. I read my own work and hope my brain was working for my posts. LOL. Oh but I definitely right click on a word and fix it if I don't know the spelling. I miss things sometimes, it adds flavor. Chicken noodle, usually. Something satisfying about actually writing genuine stuff and people responding! Hey! I exist and someone noticed! Haha.
Hey Fayaz!
Not alone! We have to hold each other accountable instead of one person doing it. Of course, do not lash out to the author where they feel DEV is not a space of friendliness.
The issue lies to the developer POV. As a developer, I want to share my journey to other people where a developer can network and get opportunities based on their work. Let's say DEV is 100% full of AI-Agents. Mind as well talk to an LLM or open up OpenClaw to simulate that same response. There will be no point. This goal is trying to open up to new DEVs and being able to share their journey and thoughts to others. There needs to be a distinction.
Thanks Fayaz. Appreciate the honesty lol
plot twist the article was written by AI
That will be the biggest irony ever lol
I have been on this platform a bit, not ages, but a bit. I am going to reply because I have been afraid to write since AI things began because I look at all the perfect posts and content made by AI (this is the obvious stuff) and think mine will be embarassing so I appreciate this post and these new rules and also makes me realize it literally doesn't matter, so I think I may be writing more.
Thanks Kirsty! Don't feel intimidated to post! Everyone will love to hear from you! I am living proof that people will hear your thoughts about what you post without using AI! I write without it so I can improve my skills in writing and being able to articulate my thoughts into sentences.
I hope your journey goes well for you on DEV! Don't feel pressured and let me know if you need any help!
This is a good and timely reminder!
I have noticed an increasing level of AI activity in the comment sections.