Screaming in the Cloud
Screaming in the Cloud
Corey Quinn
When AI Starts Writing the Pull Requests with Madelyn Olson
29 minutes Posted Jun 25, 2026 at 10:30 am.
AI-generated code is no longer just producing low-quality pull requests. According to AWS Principal Engineer and Valkey core maintainer Madelyn Olson, the quality of AI-assisted contributions has improved dramatically in just the last few months.In this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, Corey Quinn and Madelyn discuss how AI is changing open source development, the growing burden on maintainers, and how projects like Valkey are using AI to find bugs, improve security, and harden production systems. They also explore Valkey's continued growth, the future of software development, and why experience, operational knowledge, and community still matter in an age where code is becoming cheaper to create. *Since this episode was recorded without video, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with AI!Show Highlights:
Open Source Stability Push
Reinvent Afterglow Banter
AI PRs Get Better
Whimsy Versus AI Slop
AI Security Hunting Reality
Maintainers Adapt to AI
Valkey Fork Wins Adoption
Fighting the AI Tidal Wave
Next Five Years and Roadmap
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AI-generated code is no longer just producing low-quality pull requests. According to AWS Principal Engineer and Valkey core maintainer Madelyn Olson, the quality of AI-assisted contributions has improved dramatically in just the last few months.In this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, Corey Quinn and Madelyn discuss how AI is changing open source development, the growing burden on maintainers, and how projects like Valkey are using AI to find bugs, improve security, and harden production systems. They also explore Valkey's continued growth, the future of software development, and why experience, operational knowledge, and community still matter in an age where code is becoming cheaper to create. *Since this episode was recorded without video, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with AI!Show Highlights: (00:00) Open Source Stability Push(00:32) Reinvent Afterglow Banter(01:40) AI PRs Get Better(04:36) Whimsy Versus AI Slop(06:14) AI Security Hunting Reality(09:12) Maintainers Adapt to AI(11:28) Valkey Fork Wins Adoption(14:43) Fighting the AI Tidal Wave(23:45) Next Five Years and Roadmap(27:02) Release Woes and Where to FollowAbout Madelyn: Madelyn Olson is a co-creator and core maintainer of Valkey, a high-performance key-value datastore, and a Principal Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She specializes in building secure, highly reliable systems and is passionate about collaborating with open-source communities. In her role at Amazon, Madelyn serves as a Principal Software Development Engineer for Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB, where she focuses on advancing distributed data technologies and contributing to the growth and success of the Valkey project.Sponsored by: duckbillhq.com