this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026

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283

Linus Torvalds says AI has made 'huge' Linux kernel updates the new normal (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 week ago by General_Effort@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com 258 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (18 children)

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

[–] mcv@lemmy.zip 56 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] davetortoise@reddthat.com 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Exactly.

What is the powerful new tools can be used for great good as well as great evil

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[–] SoupBrick@pawb.social 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[–] vogi@piefed.social 9 points 1 week ago

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.

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[–] soratoyuki@piefed.zip 163 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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."

[–] XLE@piefed.social 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

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

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ya, I was a terrible developer before, now I'm still terrible but faster. LOL

[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 21 points 1 week ago

just think about how much more damage you can do with a gun vs your fist

ai is an icbm

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[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 65 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 week ago

Agreed, this is one way that LLMs can increase the quality of code.

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[–] Miller@lemmy.world 57 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I am not sure anything about that is good.

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 50 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] uuj8za@piefed.social 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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 🚨

[–] uuj8za@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just when Linux started getting really good too with game support.

While I love BSD, three just not enough support for running it on desktop. Lack of drivers and good luck playing modern games.

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[–] piyuv@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] katze@lemmy.4d2.org 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] DjangoFett@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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.

[–] T3CHT@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago (14 children)

Here here. This place doesn't have much rational thoughts on AI.

I'm (a little) surprised how group think this place is on the topic - y'all are a serious echo chamber. This place is like rainbow flags and kill the bots central. Any pro AI counterpoint mentions bring pitch forks and hate. That's not a good look.

Maybe I'm an AI bro myself, but I'm also an experienced professional using it to do real work (and no, not taking any jobs, building new tools for a team that needs them). Linus is a real expert. But why listen to experience and expertise when you have an opinion and feel justified. It's ok to be afraid, but when scary change comes wise folks listen and learn.

Here we don't worry about facts and reality, just get your outrage revved up. Social media is social media - and that's scarier than AI, because it uses people to make the garbage.

[–] MrLLM@ani.social 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean, yeah, most people here dislike/hate AI for diversity of reasons, most commonly for:

Taking up PC components that don’t even exist
Taking up green land
Pollute nearby areas with audible noise
Pirate and suck in all the human knowledge just to sell it back to you
Effectively DDoS-ing hundreds of thousands of websites and forcing them to implement captcha-like screening
Frying (even more) new generation’s attention spans and melt their ability to think by themselves
Ruining human interaction on the internet and filling it up with shit content
Corporates forcing AI on everything for the sake of having it
Threatening to take people’s jobs

And tbf, most of those issues come from brain-rot executives and corporates.

It’s okay if you like it and you find it helpful, it’s a tool after all. Like any other tool, on the right hands might boost productivity and help with repetitive tasks.

The main problem is that most people will think that you support any of the above downsides by liking it.

I’m a bit curious, would you share your pro AI counterpoints?

~I~ ~know,~ ~username~ ~doesn’t~ ~check~ ~out~

~Edit:~ ~grammar~

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[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 8 points 1 week ago (13 children)

I'm actually a bit scared. We're essentially at the early days of AIs now being able to execute tasks and hack. Imagine a much better model than what Claude has now, being set free/open, for hackers to utilize that in a virus. A virus that adapts, learns, changes it's own code/masks, looks for exploits, spreads around like crazy, destroying systems. How do you stop something like that once it starts doing it's thing?

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Well, it's a good thing that AI is being used to fix tons of bugs and potential exploits before it comes to that, isn't it?

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[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

And we just had a post about how Linux has avoided enshitification.

Small changes driven by AI right now are hopefully being reviewed and controlled by experienced and knowledgeable senior developers, for now. Let's see how long that will last before they stop understanding what's going on in the kernel.

[–] bobbyfiend@retrolemmy.com 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does this mean kernels will be less stable? Big changes all at once seem to imply that, generally.

[–] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

most of the changes are caused by security vulnerabilities being discovered and fixed and potential crashes being discovered and fixed.

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I hear a lot of good things about OpenBSD

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[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] resterWink@lemmy.darkc0de.one 15 points 1 week ago

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

[–] BrickEater@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)

CAN I NOT HAVE FUCKING ANYTHING THAT HASNT BEEN TAINTED BY AI!?!

[–] Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Going outside and yelling at the clouds. For now.

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[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 7 points 1 week ago

But this is a best case scenario: bugs accumulated over the years are being spotted automatically and reviewed by experienced devs. It was normal to have a few updates that are very large due to all the accumulated cruft.

The bigger deal that will be an issue going forward is the bogus bug reports, not the good ones. The legit reports will dwindle eventually, bullshit reports will keep coming.

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[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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.

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