Re: The Slopification of the CCG

The structure of workgroups and SDOs will change with increasingly
capable AI.

For almost a year now, I've been able to ask LLMs how to accomplish what I
want. They read the API documentation, answered my questions and
implemented the API. I never, once looked at a standard or the code.
However, I do ask Claude Code to generate markdown files for documentation,
which helps me feel in control and reduces the cost and risk of future
changes. The documentation includes very valuable analyses of security
vulnerabilities.

Consequently, the role of groups like CCG and standards workgroups is
changing, at least for me. I look forward to learning about business
realities and real-world experience.

I no longer care about new standards. If a vendor or service provider wants
my business, it's up to them to provide and document the APIs. Standardized
APIs can reduce risk and switching costs, of course, but if the tradeoff is
5+ years of discussions on CCG and related forums, the juice is no longer
worth the squeeze.

Adrian

On Sat, Apr 18, 2026 at 4:22 PM Kim Hamilton <kimdhamilton@gmail.com> wrote:

> Marcus represents a growing contingent of increasingly concerned folks,
> and I'm grateful to him for speaking up.
>
> Several factors:
> 1. LLMs trained on the existing corpus of internet standards will tend to
> reproduce the assumptions baked into it. Particularly given the work of
> this group, our experience* as humans *is critical for detecting /
> evaluating any such bias*.
> 2. Particularly for a standards generation/incubation body, it's essential
> to know that a contribution comes from an individual/org/entity with a
> stake in the outcome and accountability for the direction it implies.
> 3. Of particular concern is (what I consider) a category error prematurely
> attributing properties like "knowledge", "understanding" to LLMs, with
> accompanying statements implying we humans are now off the hook for deeper
> critical evaluation.
>
> Our human agency, judgment, and accountability*,* *feeble though our
> little brains may be,* are needed now more than ever.
>
> To Manu's point, perhaps the venue for authentic human discourse in the
> CCG is now restricted to the group calls, until someone creates a
> vocally-convincing agent...
>
> Kim
>
> ** Not saying you cannot use an LLM to help with this work, but see other
> points*
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2026 at 12:38 PM Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web) <
> mwherman@parallelspace.net> wrote:
>
>> [I know I’m saying too much but I have a lot to say.]
>>
>>
>>
>> RE: LLMs will slowly absorb all pattern matching and synthesis work.
>>
>>
>>
>> +1 Christoph
>>
>>
>>
>> At DAVOS this past January, noted expert Yuval Noah Harari shared the
>> following (https://youtu.be/QiT2yK-5-yg?si=x71xvnZou_72o9u2&t=227):
>>
>>
>>
>> *Some people argue that AI is just glorified autocomplete. It barely
>> predicts the next word in a sentence. But is that so different from what
>> the human mind is doing? Try to observe - to catch - the next word that
>> pops up in your mind. Do you really know why you thought of that word?
>> …where did it come from? Why did you think of this particular word and not
>> some other word? Do you know? *
>>
>>
>>
>> *As far as putting words in order is concerned, AI already thinks better
>> than many of us. Therefore, anything made of words will be taken over by
>> AI. If laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If
>> books are just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. *
>>
>>
>>
>> *If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion. This
>> is particularly true of religions based on books like Islam, Christianity,
>> or Judaism. Judaism called itself the religion of the book and it grants
>> ultimate authority not to humans but to words in books. Humans have
>> authority in Judaism not because of our experiences but only because we
>> learn words in books. Now, no human can read and remember all the words in
>> all the Jewish books. But AI can easily do that. What happens to a
>> “religion of the book” when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?*
>>
>> [Yuval Noah Harari, 2026]
>>
>>
>>
>> *In effect, all the standards we need already exist.  It’s a simple
>> matter of choosing the right words and placing them in the right order.  AI
>> can do this more completely, more correctly, with greater precision, and
>> less time and effort than any human or (working) group of humans. [Michael
>> Herman, 2026]*
>>
>>
>>
>> I’ll try to pipe down,
>>
>> Michael Herman
>>
>> Chief Digital Officer
>>
>> Web 7.0 Foundation
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Christoph <christoph@christophdorn.com>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, April 18, 2026 8:23 AM
>> *To:* Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>; Eduardo C. <
>> e.chongkan@gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Marcus Engvall <marcus@engvall.email>; W3C Credentials CG <
>> public-credentials@w3.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: The Slopification of the CCG
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2026, at 2:04 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>
>> so 18. 4. 2026 v 5:39 odesílatel Eduardo C. <e.chongkan@gmail.com>
>> napsal:
>>
>> "I find it difficult to trust a contribution in this group if it has been
>> generated by an LLM"
>>
>>
>>
>> A- I wonder how everyone can tell if something was written by an LLM?
>> Aside of the now infamous "--" here and there that it uses, how can you
>> guys tell? ( how do you know it is not a grammaraly plugin? )
>>
>> B- Also wondering if the embedded gemini would detect if an email or text
>> was generated by an LLM. And more importantly, detect slope in that email
>> or content. e.g. I normally use 2 different LLMs to do manual adversary
>> checks on each other outputs and analysis, Gemini + Claude, and they
>> usually find improvements or catches, and I also find deviations and
>> correct the alignment.
>>
>> C- Most slope happens when one is researching or asking for things that
>> are not in the model itself. E.g. you ask for certain uncommon thing and
>> the models—all of them—keep levitating and pointing towards what the
>> probability says they should answer. One needs to be aware of that.
>>
>>
>>
>> LLM content is reasonably easy to identify as many signals are inserted
>> by default.
>>
>>
>>
>> If we consider content on the internet over the last 2-3 years its gone
>> from small LLM contributions to majority LLM content.
>>
>>
>>
>> I see the same happening with standards, as LLMs get smarter.
>>
>>
>>
>> IMHO we're in the last phase of human authored standards, and LLMs will
>> end up becoming the majority of content in standards. But that's nothing to
>> fear. It just means we get things over the line faster and at a higher
>> quality than ever before.
>>
>>
>>
>> The standards that went before will be building blocks for what comes
>> next.
>>
>>
>>
>> I share this point of view. LLMs will slowly absorb all pattern matching
>> and synthesis work.
>>
>>
>>
>> There is currently a huge spectrum of LLM practitioner competence leading
>> to different assessments of LLM usefulness and capability. This leads to
>> opinions that are not well grounded.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> What humans will be able to do is to manage the complexity budget,
>> present use cases and help standards work gain adoption.
>>
>>
>>
>> Humans will provide the judgement to direct LLMs and thus standards
>> towards what matters which is what LLM cannot do.
>>
>>
>>
>> Humans provide direction, LLMs execute.
>>
>>
>>
>> IMO the focus of this list will evolve towards making such judgements and
>> discussions about meaningful direction will become more and more important
>> in the future. When you can go any direction rapidly, you might as well go
>> in directions that really matter.
>>
>>
>>
>> Christooh
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> BTW, I agree with Michael Herman 100%.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Eduardo Chongkan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 4:43 PM Marcus Engvall <marcus@engvall.email>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been a passive observer of the CCG and have found the discussions
>> in this group to have been remarkably considered, professional, and above
>> all else clear in both intent and direction. I hesitate to comment on the
>> current state of the mailing list as my tenure is minuscule compared to
>> some of my brilliant co-participants, but the quality of recent
>> contributions have compelled me to share some thoughts.
>>
>>
>>
>> Standards work is fundamentally a rigorous process of deriving a
>> synthesis of human knowledge and judgement through healthy debate and,
>> particularly in this group, decentralised knowledge discovery. It is
>> precisely the provenance of consideration that establishes the trust basis
>> necessary for the voluntary adoption of standards. Without trust, there is
>> no standard. It follows then that preserving the integrity of the
>> standardisation process is existential for any group working on standards.
>>
>>
>>
>> AI has improved the accessibility of standardisation to a larger and more
>> diverse group of participants which is incredibly valuable for
>> standardisation and should be encouraged. However, it should not come at
>> the cost of compromising the integrity of the process itself, something I
>> fear is happening in this group.
>>
>>
>>
>> Many recent contributions on this mailing list bear the hallmarks of LLM
>> generation. To be clear, it is my view that there is nothing wrong with
>> using AI agents to assist with research, proofreading, and other similar
>> tasks. I use these tools every day professionally and their value is
>> undeniable. That said, they are not replacements for human judgement, and
>> this is something I think shared by most people in this group.
>>
>>
>>
>> I find it difficult to trust a contribution in this group if it has been
>> generated by an LLM, and it is becoming increasingly intractable to follow
>> discussions as they seem to inevitably degenerate to chatbots arguing with
>> each other. Inferring the direction of standardisation, which has a direct
>> impact on commercial and technical planning, becomes impossible. I find it
>> quite ironic that the recent thread discussing LLMs and agents in the CCG
>> contains responses that suggest that they themselves have been generated by
>> an AI. If anything, I think it is proof enough of how acute this problem is.
>>
>>
>>
>> There is also the somewhat primal and adversarial aspect of evaluating
>> human judgement and reaching consensus. A debate is a contest between two
>> humans arguing for their position, which presupposes real agency and, well,
>> humanity. An AI agent is not, and will never be, a real human - and nobody
>> wants to credibly evaluate the arguments of a robot.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not sure what the solution is, but I feel that the effects of this
>> are severe and will almost certainly discourage participants from
>> contributing, the downstream consequences of which I think are clear to
>> everyone.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would like to close out this lengthy email with this: I think a serious
>> discussion should be opened to consider migrating to a discussion channel
>> that is more resistant to AI agents, or at least consensus be formed to
>> institute and enforce a strict code of conduct with zero-tolerance for AI
>> slop. Openness is important, and exclusionary dynamics must be avoided to
>> the extent possible, but the integrity of the standardisation process and
>> the important work done in this group depends on humanity and not
>> artificiality.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Marcus Engvall
>>
>>
>>
>> Principal—M. Engvall & Co.
>>
>> mengvall.com
>>
>>
>>
>