Why AI is both a curse and a blessing to open-source software - according to developers - ZDNET

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. AI has turned security triage into 'terror reporting,' draining time, attention, and the 'will to live.' But, used right, it can help. Here's how. Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Recently, there was some great news about AI and open source: Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 AI is helping clean up Firefox’s open-source code. According to Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox, Anthropic’s Frontier Red Team found more high-severity bugs in Firefox in just two weeks than people typically report in two months. Mozilla proclaimed: “This is clear evidence that large-scale, AI-assisted analysis is a powerful new addition in security engineers’ toolbox.” Also: AI is getting scary good at finding hidden software bugs – even in decades-old code That’s great, right? Right!? Well, not so fast. There’s another darker side to the use of AI in open-source software. Daniel Stenberg, creator of the popular open-source data transfer program cURL, has pointed out that his project has been flooded with bogus, AI‑written security reports that drown maintainers in poin