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Linus Torvalds used AI to fix a Linux bug, and now LLM critics on Linux face an uncomfortable choice
(www.xda-developers.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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I would trust Linus Torvalds to use AI to do this because the AI is literally trying to copy him when it writes that code. In that context, he is the training data.
I especially like his most recent use of LLMs.
Specifically as a threat to induce someone else to step up as a maintainer of the debug tool sparse.
I've been in that position for something nowhere near as important as the Linux Kernel. It SUCKS. I don't want an AI to take over, but I don't blame him for wanting to step down.
This is a tool whose previous maintainers have apparently stopped working on it, not something that Linus was still involved in maintaining. This isn't so much him wanting to step down, as him not wanting to step up if someone else with an interest in it might be willing to do so.
Same diff. I've also turned down the "do you want to maintain this" call. Still don't blame him.
Great stuff, especially this part:
Well, the tool apparently fought him and "several times stated flat out that this was impossible and unsolvable and that we should just write a report about it."
And it also doesn't look like the LLM actually added code so much as helped with debug code and analysis, however exactly that may have looked like. The resulting fix changes three lines of code, very much human-writable or -verifiable.
Also, let's not worship Linus. The guy has done much good and is brilliant, but he's still human, still capable of making mistakes. This instance working out well deserves the proper appreciation, bu we still ought to be wary.
He's not writing much of anything at all anymore, he is copy pasting emails to
git am.