[CalebJohn]

> Algorithmically, this is an interesting problem but it should be quite solvable. Just, for some reason, nobody has worked on this yet. So, thanks for writing this post and bringing more attention to this problem!

I'm skeptical that an algorithmic solution will be possible, but I can see this being handled in a UX layer built on top. For example, a client could detect that there's been a conflict based on the editing traces, and show a conflict resolution dialog that makes a new edit based on the resolution. The tricky part is marking a conflict as resolved. I suspect it could be as simple as adding a field to the crdt, but maybe then it counts as an algorithmic solution?

[1] https://josephg.com/blog/crdts-go-brrr/

[crabmusket]

That is what josephg was suggesting:

> it should be very possible to build a CRDT which uses this information to detects & mark conflict ranges when branches are merged

[CalebJohn]

I should have been more clear in my original comment.

I don't think that the conflict detection/resolution needs to live inside the CRDT data structure. Ultimately you might want to bake it in out of convenience, but it should be possible to handle separately (of course the resolution will ultimately need to be written to the CRDT, but this can be a regular edit).

Keeping the conflict resolution in the application layer allows for CRDT libraries that don't need to be aware of human-in-the-loop conflicts, and can serve a wider range of downstream needs. For example, a note app and a version control system might both be plain text, but conflict resolution needs to be handled completely differently. Another example would be collaborative offline vs. online use cases, as noted above, they are very different use cases.

[astrobe_]

Do you think that a LLM/"AI" can reliably solve the merging problem?

[taejo]

> Do you think that a LLM/"AI" can reliably

No. LLMs definitely have uses where reliability is not a requirement, but that's one requirement which LLMs clearly never meet