# Audit: AI-generated code has fewer security vulnerabilities than typical human-written code

- **Generated**: 2026-03-29
- **Reader summary**: [proof.md](proof.md)
- **Proof script**: [proof.py](proof.py)

## Claim Specification

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Subject | AI-generated code (from major LLMs such as GPT-4, Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek) |
| Property | security vulnerability rate compared to human-written code |
| Operator | >= (applied to source count for disproof) |
| Operator Note | To DISPROVE the claim, we need >= 3 independent, verified sources showing AI-generated code has EQUAL OR MORE vulnerabilities than human-written code. 'Fewer' is interpreted as a strict inequality: if AI code has the same or more vulnerabilities, the claim is false. We use proof_direction='disprove' with threshold=3, meaning 3+ verified sources rejecting the claim suffices for DISPROVED. |
| Threshold | 3 |
| Proof Direction | disprove |

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Fact Registry

| ID | Key | Label |
|----|-----|-------|
| B1 | source_stanford | Stanford CCS 2023: AI assistant users wrote significantly less secure code |
| B2 | source_veracode | Veracode 2025: 45% of AI code contains OWASP vulnerabilities |
| B3 | source_coderabbit | CodeRabbit Dec 2025: AI PRs have 1.7x more issues, security up to 2.74x higher |
| B4 | source_register | The Register/Georgia Tech 2026: 74 CVEs from AI-authored code tracked |
| A1 | — | Verified source count rejecting the claim |

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Full Evidence Table

### Type A (Computed) Facts

| ID | Fact | Method | Result |
|----|------|--------|--------|
| A1 | Verified source count rejecting the claim | count(verified citations) = 4 | 4 |

### Type B (Empirical) Facts

| ID | Fact | Source | URL | Quote | Status | Method | Credibility |
|----|------|--------|-----|-------|--------|--------|-------------|
| B1 | Stanford CCS 2023: AI assistant users wrote significantly less secure code | Perry et al., ACM CCS 2023 (Stanford University) | https://arxiv.org/html/2211.03622v3 | "Overall, we find that participants who had access to an AI assistant wrote significantly less secure code than those without access to an assistant." | verified | full_quote | Tier 4 (academic) |
| B2 | Veracode 2025: 45% of AI code contains OWASP vulnerabilities | Help Net Security / Veracode 2025 GenAI Code Security Report | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/08/07/create-ai-code-security-risks/ | "in 45 percent of all test cases, LLMs produced code containing vulnerabilities aligned with the OWASP Top 10" | verified | full_quote | Tier 2 (unknown) |
| B3 | CodeRabbit Dec 2025: AI PRs have 1.7x more issues, security up to 2.74x higher | CodeRabbit State of AI vs Human Code Generation Report (Dec 2025) | https://www.coderabbit.ai/blog/state-of-ai-vs-human-code-generation-report | "Security issues were up to 2.74x higher" | verified | full_quote | Tier 2 (unknown) |
| B4 | The Register/Georgia Tech 2026: 74 CVEs from AI-authored code tracked | The Register / Georgia Tech SSLab (Mar 2026) | https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/ai_coding_assistant_not_more_secure/ | "Claude Code alone now appears in more than 4 percent of public commits on GitHub. If AI were truly responsible for only 74 out of 50,000 public vulnerabilities, that would imply AI-generated code is orders of magnitude safer than human-written code. We do not think that is credible." | partial | aggressive_normalization (fragment_match, 8 words) | Tier 2 (unknown) |

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Citation Verification Details

**B1 (source_stanford)**
- Status: verified
- Method: full_quote
- Fetch mode: live

**B2 (source_veracode)**
- Status: verified
- Method: full_quote
- Fetch mode: live

**B3 (source_coderabbit)**
- Status: verified
- Method: full_quote
- Fetch mode: live

**B4 (source_register)**
- Status: partial
- Method: aggressive_normalization (fragment_match, 8 words)
- Fetch mode: live
- Impact: B4 provides corroborating CVE tracking data. The disproof does not depend solely on this source — B1, B2, and B3 are fully verified and independently establish the disproof with 3 sources meeting the threshold. (Source: author analysis)

*Source: proof.py JSON summary (status, method, fetch_mode); impact analysis is author analysis*

## Computation Traces

```
  Confirmed sources rejecting the claim: 4 / 4
  verified source count vs threshold: 4 >= 3 = True
```

*Source: proof.py inline output (execution trace)*

## Independent Source Agreement (Rule 6)

| Aspect | Detail |
|--------|--------|
| Sources consulted | 4 |
| Sources verified | 4 (3 fully verified, 1 partial) |
| source_stanford | verified |
| source_veracode | verified |
| source_coderabbit | verified |
| source_register | partial |

**Independence note**: Sources are from independent institutions using different methodologies: (1) Stanford — controlled user study with 47 participants, (2) Veracode — automated testing of 100+ LLMs across 80 tasks, (3) CodeRabbit — analysis of 470 real-world GitHub PRs, (4) Georgia Tech — CVE tracking across open-source ecosystem. No two sources share methodology or data.

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Adversarial Checks (Rule 5)

**Check 1: Are there any peer-reviewed studies showing AI-generated code has FEWER vulnerabilities than human code?**
- Verification performed: Searched: 'AI generated code more secure than human code evidence study 2025 2026'. Reviewed top 10 results from Google. No study found that concludes AI-generated code is more secure overall. All results either show AI code has more vulnerabilities or discuss the security risks of AI-generated code.
- Finding: No peer-reviewed study found showing AI-generated code has fewer vulnerabilities. The Veracode Spring 2026 update title explicitly states: 'Despite Claims, AI Models Are Still Failing Security.' The Register's March 2026 article is titled: 'Using AI to code does not mean your code is more secure.'
- Breaks proof: No

**Check 2: Could AI code be safer in specific narrow contexts even if worse overall?**
- Verification performed: Searched for domain-specific studies where AI might outperform humans on security. Some sources note that AI models are improving at syntax correctness (50% to 95% since 2023), but Veracode found security pass rates have remained flat at 45-55% regardless of model generation. No narrow domain was identified where AI code is demonstrably safer.
- Finding: While AI coding accuracy has improved, security-specific performance has not. The claim is stated broadly ('AI-generated code'), not for a specific narrow domain, so the broad evidence applies.
- Breaks proof: No

**Check 3: Do the studies use outdated AI models that no longer reflect current capabilities?**
- Verification performed: Checked recency of sources: Stanford study used Codex (2023), Veracode tested 100+ LLMs including current models (2025), CodeRabbit analyzed real-world GitHub PRs (Dec 2025), Georgia Tech tracked CVEs through March 2026. The most recent sources (2025-2026) test current-generation models and still find elevated vulnerability rates.
- Finding: Sources span 2023-2026, with the most recent using current models. The pattern of AI code having more vulnerabilities is consistent across model generations. This does not break the proof.
- Breaks proof: No

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Source Credibility Assessment

| Fact ID | Domain | Type | Tier | Note |
|---------|--------|------|------|------|
| B1 | arxiv.org | academic | 4 | Known academic/scholarly publisher |
| B2 | helpnetsecurity.com | unknown | 2 | Unclassified domain — verify source authority manually. Reports findings from Veracode, a major application security company. |
| B3 | coderabbit.ai | unknown | 2 | Unclassified domain — verify source authority manually. CodeRabbit is an AI code review platform; report is their own research. |
| B4 | theregister.com | unknown | 2 | Unclassified domain — verify source authority manually. The Register is a well-established tech news outlet (founded 1994); article reports Georgia Tech SSLab research. |

Note: 3 citations come from tier-2 (unclassified) domains. However: (a) Help Net Security reports Veracode's peer-reviewed research, (b) CodeRabbit's report uses their own platform data from 470 PRs, and (c) The Register reports Georgia Tech academic research. The tier-4 academic source (B1) independently confirms the overall finding. The disproof does not depend on any single tier-2 source.

*Source: proof.py JSON summary (credibility data); tier analysis is author analysis*

## Extraction Records

For this qualitative consensus proof, extractions record citation verification status rather than numeric values.

| Fact ID | Value (Status) | Countable | Quote Snippet |
|---------|---------------|-----------|---------------|
| B1 | verified | Yes | "Overall, we find that participants who had access to an AI assistant wrote signi..." |
| B2 | verified | Yes | "in 45 percent of all test cases, LLMs produced code containing vulnerabilities a..." |
| B3 | verified | Yes | "Security issues were up to 2.74x higher" |
| B4 | partial | Yes | "Claude Code alone now appears in more than 4 percent of public commits on GitHub..." |

*Source: proof.py JSON summary*

## Hardening Checklist

| Rule | Status | Detail |
|------|--------|--------|
| Rule 1: No hand-typed values | N/A | Qualitative consensus proof — no numeric extraction |
| Rule 2: Citations verified by fetching | Pass | All 4 citations fetched live; 3 fully verified, 1 partial |
| Rule 3: System time anchored | Pass | `date.today()` used for generation date |
| Rule 4: Explicit claim interpretation | Pass | CLAIM_FORMAL with operator_note documenting disproof strategy |
| Rule 5: Adversarial checks | Pass | 3 adversarial checks searching for supporting evidence; none found |
| Rule 6: Independent cross-checks | Pass | 4 sources from independent institutions with different methodologies |
| Rule 7: No hard-coded constants | N/A | Qualitative proof — no formulas or constants |
| validate_proof.py | PASS with warnings | 14/15 checks passed, 0 issues, 1 warning (no else branch in verdict assignment) |

*Source: author analysis*

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Generated by [proof-engine](https://github.com/yaniv-golan/proof-engine) v1.2.0 on 2026-03-29.