--- title: The creator of Zig banned AI contributions | daily.dev description: Andrew Kelly (creator of Zig) banned AI-generated contributions to his project, citing 'contributor poker' — the idea that code reviews are really about... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The creator of Zig banned AI contributions | daily.dev og:description: Andrew Kelly (creator of Zig) banned AI-generated contributions to his project, citing 'contributor poker' — the idea that code reviews are really about... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vy6dEfN2g.png og:image:alt: The creator of Zig banned AI contributions og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The creator of Zig banned AI contributions **[Awesome](https://daily.dev/sources/awesome-coding)** · 10 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Andrew Kelly (creator of Zig) banned AI-generated contributions to his project, citing 'contributor poker' — the idea that code reviews are really about mentorship and identifying future core contributors, not just merging patches. Bjarne Stroustrup (creator of C++) argues LLMs are structurally backward-looking, producing remixes of old code with old bugs, and that AI-generated changes lack locality, making debugging harder. Both agree the industry's biggest problem is the pipeline of junior developers drying up as companies stop investing in training. The Bun runtime's Claude-assisted rewrite from Zig to Rust is used as a case study: the rewrite doubled the codebase to ~1 million lines and passed 99.8% of tests, but the community found it riddled with unsafe blocks everywhere — defeating Rust's core memory-safety guarantees. The airline industry pilot shortage is used as an analogy for what happens when you stop growing the next generation of practitioners. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Zig project's rationale for their firm anti-AI contribution policy](https://daily.dev/posts/the-zig-project-s-rationale-for-their-firm-anti-ai-contribution-policy-88a1ctlfz) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Zig creator calls Bun's Claude Rust rewrite 'unreviewed slop'](https://daily.dev/posts/zig-creator-calls-bun-s-claude-rust-rewrite-unreviewed-slop--zlkefwvdc) · DEVCLASS · 11 upvotes · 6 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#rust](https://daily.dev/tags/rust), [#zig](https://daily.dev/tags/zig) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The creator of Zig banned AI contributions","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g"},"datePublished":"2026-06-08T12:00:33.730Z","dateModified":"2026-06-11T11:33:16.990Z","description":"Andrew Kelly (creator of Zig) banned AI-generated contributions to his project, citing 'contributor poker' — the idea that code reviews are really about...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2AzUeddzxF0/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2AzUeddzxF0/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Awesome","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Awesome","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--mj_0cdD8--/f_auto/v1710506099/logos/awesome-coding","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/awesome-coding"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-creator-of-zig-banned-ai-contributions-vy6defn2g","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai,open-source,rust,zig","timeRequired":"PT10M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"The creator of Zig banned AI contributions","description":"Andrew Kelly (creator of Zig) banned AI-generated contributions to his project, citing 'contributor poker' — the idea that code reviews are really about...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2AzUeddzxF0/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-06-08T12:00:33.730Z","duration":"PT10M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/vy6dEfN2g","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/2AzUeddzxF0"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Awesome","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/awesome-coding"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The creator of Zig banned AI contributions"}]} ```