arXiv:2611.15159v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The FOSS ecosystem has always relied on outside contributions, notably through issues or Pull Requests (PRs), to sustain itself. With the advance of GenAI, the barrier to contributing to FOSS projects has never been lower, leading to the emergence of AI slop PRs: low-quality, low-value generated PRs. Past studies have examined AI slop PRs through theoretical, platform-level, or practitioner-account frames, but not at the project level. To this end, this study investigates the incidence of maintainer-identified AI slop PRs in FOSS projects by focusing on PRs flagged as slop by maintainers. Using a mixed-methods approach, we trace the origins of maintainer-identified AI slop PRs, quantify their volume in FOSS projects, describe their characteristics, and highlight maintainers' reasons for flagging or closing them. Our results show that the volume of maintainer-identified AI slop PRs increased in mid-2025, peaking in May 2026. These PRs are mostly additive, rarely merged, and typically closed within 3 days. The authors of these PRs disclosed the use of AI in 14% of cases, with 1% disclosing after a maintainer's request. Most PRs are closed or marked as slop without any reason provided by the maintainer. Based on our open coding, reasons range from concrete elements, like build failures, to ideological or intuitive (i.e., "looks AI to me"). This exploratory study captures a phenomenon in its early stage and highlights GenAI's potential impact on FOSS, emphasizing the pressure it puts on maintainers and the need to shift current open-source development practices.
Continue to arXiv Software Engineering →You are being forwarded in 6s — stay on this page