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Linus Torvalds says AI has made 'huge' Linux kernel updates the new normal
(www.theregister.com)
CAN I NOT HAVE FUCKING ANYTHING THAT HASNT BEEN TAINTED BY AI!?!
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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Let's not become the equivalent of boomers in front of the advancement of technology
Does this mean kernels will be less stable? Big changes all at once seem to imply that, generally.
Slopux? LLLinux?
Doesn't ring as well as Microslop, but we'll get there.
Using LLMs to analyze code for problems makes a lot of sense. It is just an extension of the rule based analysis we already do. It is very much a better hammer rather than a replacement of labour/thinking/taste. The programming languages we use are often difficult for humans to reason about reliably and hide a lot of errors. Our programming languages still suck (yes even Rust). If one day clang of gcc ships with a local LLM to lint code for security problems I would probably run it occasionally even on my hobby code despite being an AI hater.
If people are identifying errors using LLMs and fixing them by hand I am fine with that. It seems like a good use of the technology. If they start vibe coding drivers I want it declared so I can disable them or move to BSD.
Agreed, this is one way that LLMs can increase the quality of code.
You know, compiler based AI (not just LLMs) seem like an idea that might be pretty interesting. The option to disable or completely omit them from the toolchain would be mandatory however. But, even then we would have to consider how many pieces of software that then rely on this proverbial black box built into compilers would then get integrated into critical supply chain? We soon would have to start running behavior based "background checks" (just an analogy) on our software much like we do with people due to the unpredictability of such complexity.
Side note, I can't wait to see just how complex the field of game theory gets with AI. I would love to see any video essays on the topic if they do exist already.
🧐
Many projects require replicatable builds. Generative AI is driven by noise so I am not sure if it has any role in optimization or code gen. I guess we could share an RNG seed with source but honestly current tool chains are too slow as it is and ML would likely make it much worse. I want faster edit/compile/debug cycles and compilers already do insane optimisations. Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust becomes much scarier if your code generation is being driven by a black box of billions or parameters nobody understands. An adversary could embed anything in there.
The machine translation origins of LLMs make them really good at inspecting text and looking for things that look like known bugs. It must be a game changer for security researchers who already know what sort of problems to look for but don't have enough hours in the day to search the haystack manually. If some of that knowledge was available in a good quality FOSS local code analysis tool it might be irresponsible not to use it. We can't be dependent on commercial vendors and closed models.
Hyping up AI doesn’t become nice when Linus does it.
He can be a legendary developer, a better one than I’ll probably ever become, but I just don’t see how one can separate the use and the ethical implications of this. AI companies want to replace workers, period. There’s no plan to “increase productivity” and still employ this many people. The plan is to increase profits for shareholders.
AI helping Linus to develop better doesn’t make this reality go away. It’s akin to saying we should be thankful to nazi scientists.
You should read the original article, or even his mail on LKML, because that is not what he is saying. He is not endorsing AI in any way; instead, he is concerned that the latest linux release candidate has so much changes, because everyone and their mother is using some AI tool to create and send "little small" fixes; obviously he has no control over how volunteers work.
Furthermore, he stated that the security mailing list has become unusable due to the influx of AI generated entries.
This is what happens when you don't take a stand against this shit. He brought it on himself.
All the sloppers are torn about this, but Torvalds has undeniable mastery at this, so it's great to see AI being used as a beneficial tool. If there's a single person who should have unlimited access to the most powerful AI models, it should be Linus Torvalds.
I am just really happy that he is still around to actually oversee the mixing between such an important part of computing infrastructure and the new radical tool of AI. Had it been 10 years later and we probably would have uber slop linux
Every Linus AI headline for the last year: "AI is the future, adapt or die, if you hate AI leave Linux."
Every actual Linus quotation from those articles: "AI can be a powerful tool in the hands of experienced human programmers that are still responsible for every line of code they push."
because people with an agenda are seeing:
- linux people hate ai
- top linux guy doesn't hate ai
then try to combine those while leaving out the specific details so people come to their own conclusions based on emotional reaction in the hopes that linux users will turn away from linux or even change their views on ai the same way maga fucks change their views on epstein
or maybe its just an every day well intentioned headline like everything else
AI isn't perfect. But Christ, anybody who points to the problems at AI had better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time.
- Linus Torvalds
Facts. How good you are as a developer. Ai is a really useful tool. Especially the latest frontier models. I don't like the companies behind them. But the models are very powerful.
Ya, I was a terrible developer before, now I'm still terrible but faster. LOL
These are the most dangerous developers..
just think about how much more damage you can do with a gun vs your fist
ai is an icbm
Everyone dooming here, but he literally just said that AIs are finding lots of glitches in old code, and that for that reason updates are getting bigger. Linus is NOT vibe coding linux.
And recently ground breaking privillege escalation glitches were found and fixed because of a LLM.
Of course we dont want shitty code from LLMs, but if they find important glitches and vulnerabilities, we obviously need to use them.
Fixed: replaced mistyped Ws with Es
Especially if it comes to security. Hate AI like nothing else but you can't deny the truth.
Linux is open source with all its code public with probably a docent of AI Agents constantly trying out different attack vectors, they will eventually find a vulnerability. It also does feel like there are more critical CVEs in recent times. (there is https://app.opencve.io/statistics but i feel like its too simple and context matters alot here but still).
I think its okey and actually a good thing if the kernel maintainers would have some AI helping them out with that sort of thing if we get a more secure kernel in return.
Linus doesn't really code anymore so the question is are others vibe coding Linux and I would say yes it is happening.
lemmings must be doomers, the only explanation seems to be intellectual diversity
I'm not against AI in general. I'm just against using it stupidly. And against using it as a vehicle for further monopolisation and centralisation of power. I'm against the "use more AI" slogan too many companies push.
But use it for specific purposes under human control that improve quality, then I'm all for it.
I don't think many people are against the existence of LLM-based AI in general, just the way it's being pushed currently.
In the hands of highly experienced and skilled people it can be very valuable - the issue is that it generally isn't. Personally I think Linus has demonstrated that he's more than capable of using it intelligently and responsibly.
Exactly.
What is the powerful new tools can be used for great good as well as great evil
Sure but humans are lazy and greedy so it well be used for mostly evil. Like people who say they check all the code sorry don't believe them and even if they do human nature means they well start to trust it and not check the code.
Nuance is a learned skill when it comes to sensitive/trending topic discourse.
For anyone reading this, please learn more about topics you have a gut reaction to so you can better explain the pros and cons. You will be able to hold your own against people who know more about the topic, but refuse to acknowledge the cons, if you do.
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AI finds bugs and holes that wouldn‘t be a problem if AI didn‘t discover them. I really don‘t envy devs for dealing with this nowadays.
Zero days are extremely powerful in the wrong hands. Without AI it just takes one person thinking how the dev didn't
Not really how it plays out. In reality safety issues of a magnitude that only surfaced once a decade are now found by AI every few weeks, showcasing that AI itself poses the biggest threat for cybersecurity today. The overwhelming majority of them would have never been found or exploited without AI.
I am not sure anything about that is good.
how about checking it and working it out for yourself?
or maybe even reading the article
jesus
I am not sure anything about that is good.
I mean it's good and bad, basically AI is finding a bunch of serious zero days... which is causing a lot of updates to need to be happening now, and that is kind of open source philosophy of security by obscurity isn't the goal.
AI is finding a bunch of serious zero days
According to Torvals/TFA:
most of this is just lots of tiny fixes. It's pretty much spread all over - drivers (gpu, sound, networking, you name it), filesystems, core networking, arch code
most of this is just lots of tiny fixes.
If it's anything like Claude on our codebase then:
const id = "foo"
// ^^^^^ WARNING!!!! GO MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO ALLOCATE THE MEMORY FOR THIS STRING!
// Here's an Enterprise String Implementation to guarantee this assignment works.
// Severity: High 🚨
LOL. Speak of the devil, some slop coder just opened a massive PR on our codebase with gems like:
func runHandler(h: Handler)
// ^^^^^^ ERROR: runHandler will panic if h is nil
// Severity: High 🚨
Uh... yes? Do you not know how pointers work? That's the point? You want to be able to run runHandler(nil)? That doesn't make any sense. That's clearly a mistake and we should loudly fail.
type OptionsWrapper struct {
Foo bool
otherOpts other.Opts
}
// ^^^^^^ ERROR: OptionsWrapper hides options only available in other.Opts.
// Severity: High 🚨
Uhh... yes? That's the whole point of OptionsWrapper. To hide stuff otherOpts. It's a wrapper.
This type of clanker output is why another slop coder opened a PR on one of our repos, angry because he said Claude said that one of our functions was deceptive. Claude said the description and docstring was misleading and we should change it.
Our function was called RunNoWait() and, hold on, you may be surprised by this, Claude was, what this function does is run something... and then it.... does... NOT wait. wtf. I know. Shocking. Misleading, deceptive name. Claude wrote some big manifesto about why the docs were misleading and rewrote the function to add a wait. 🤣
The dude backed down eventually, but he insisted we add more paragraphs of clarification to the function docs...
Whatever. Let the slop flow..... I give up.
Run... No! Wait.
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To be perfectly clear, the only AI I am subscribed to is the one Proton gives with their family plan VPN bundle, and I didn't choose it. I used it to edit a letter I wrote once and otherwise trust it as far as I can throw its server.
This knee-jerk reaction to anything with the letters AI attached being bad is just so silly. Y'all are acting the way Republicans act when it comes to the word "queer." Just because it's in the vicinity of you doesn't mean you're contaminated, you've caught it, you're now one of them.
This is a highly intelligent individual - controversial hot takes notwithstanding - utilizing a tool in a way that has proven itself to be very effective when used properly. Nobody is saying you have to get ready to be a switch in the bedroom any more than they're saying you have to use AI.
Distro maintenance is a difficult and thankless task, and having a tool that can scan and analyze code orders of magnitude faster than you as well as make suggestions on how to fix it isn't an inherently bad thing. Setting that tool loose with unlimited agency would be a bad thing, but where oh where is Linus saying he's gonna give Claude full read/write access to the entire kernel and walk away forevermore?
Hate on AI bros all you want. I'm with you there, most of them are idiots that don't know their mouth from their anus and speak from both equally. I don't think Linus fits that particular picture [hot takes notwithstanding!] when it comes to using the new tool on the market in a reasonable and measured way.
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