This might get me banned here but I mostly agree with him
AI is a tool and the problem world wide is that nearly everyone is using the tool wrong
But used right, it can be a huge benefit. We know how deeply checked and tested all code is (who doesn’t remember the continuous Linus rants?) so why does it matter if submitted code covers a bug that was discovered through AI, or even written by AI? As long as the code checkers know and understand what happens, I dont see the problem with the code having been written by a tool
Obligatory AI doesn’t exist, its LLM’s, and LLM’s are tools, and tools are fine as long as you use them well.
If companies suddenly started making two meter long chainsaws and people started running around with these chainsaws cutting little girls in half, then yeah, people would rightly question if we shouldn’t ban those tools too.
Force AI companies to be responsible for how their products are used and wait to see how fast things would get better.
And for developers: as long as every commit is reviewed and checked by humans, to me its just another tool being used to make Linux better
For those arguing the water of energy and the theft of intellectual property, it’s the same point: governments need to put rules in place to control the stupid growth of data centers, AI companies must be held yo account for the data they’ve stolen, absolutely. However, that doesn’t mean that LLM’s are tools without any use
This might get me banned here but I mostly agree with him
I have seen a turn in the tide in the past few months. Whereas online forums discussing LLM tools for coding used to be near 100% brigade against them with mostly bluff and bluster and no real basis for the arguments, attitudes have been softening. I actually read one rather long thread with 90%+ support for the tools - not blind enthusiasm with no evidence, but clear statements from users about what is working well for them and what still needs improvement. All in all, work with the new tools seems to be going better “in the trenches” than work without used to.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if you wrote the code, an LLM wrote the code, your cat tapped it out, or aliens communicated it by blinking their home sun… you check it, it works to your satisfaction, you submit it for review and merge for use by others. In all those scenarios, it’s “your code” - the LLM, your cat, aliens, none of them are going to stand up and defend the quality of the product. If you don’t really understand why what your cat wrote works, you probably shouldn’t sumbit it. Especially the alien code should be carefully examined before running, but at the end analysis it’s the code that matters, not its provenance.
I don’t think the arguments against it had no basis. It’s clear that those tools have become really useful, but a huge chunk of those arguments are ethical about the environmental and economic impact.
What I’m seeing is that those arguments are beign faded out, along with those that talked about it as if LLMs didn’t work as expected.
They are clearly useful now, and it can’t be said that they aren’t anymore, but those example that Linus gave minify the other problems and it makes it seems that anyone that does not abide by AI is a fool and an elitist, which I don’t think that’s the case.
I think that this position makes how you wrote your matter for some people.
a huge chunk of those arguments are ethical about the environmental and economic impact.
I have never seen an economic or environmental argument that puts objective numbers in context, how much more energy, water, etc. is AI using or projected to use? It’s all handwaving as if every single ChatGPT query is burning down a Macaw’s home tree in the rain forest and polluting a small town’s water supply, single handedly raising the average ocean temperature 5C.
makes it seems that anyone that does not abide by AI is a fool and an elitist
Back in the late 80s, there was a large contingent of the workforce who felt they were “too old to learn the computer.” Linus, and I, were getting our starts around then and we were the young upstarts using this “solitare playing machine” to do “a few little tricks, not sure if there’s actual value to justify the cost.” Through the 90s there was a good 20% or more of the workforce that probably would have been more effective in their jobs if they would have “skilled up” on “that computer stuff,” but they didn’t and we all got through.
Adopting AI is going to be easier than learning how to use Win95 when you’re coming from dictation, letter openers and interoffice memos delivered on paper, but I won’t be surprised or disappointed if a significant chunk of the workforce stays away from AI for a whole variety of reasons, and that’s fine. I also highly encourage those using AI to ensure that it’s actually improving their product, not just making something passable faster.
makes how you wrote your matter for some people.
Pedigree and provenance, whose child wrote this paper, who they studied under, where they grew up, all of that matters, a lot, to a lot of people, in a lot of fields. In computer code, particularly in computer code like the Linux kernel, it shouldn’t.
AI is a tool and the problem world wide is that nearly everyone is using the tool wrong
Because the public discussion devolved into some insane fight between people ideologically against any AI (funnily often the argument “it’s stealing other people’s work” is coming from people that are fundamentally against copyrights in every other case) and some not less crazy people believing that AI is their new lord and savior (and a lot of them are paid or the followers to said paid influencers you just changed one idol (tech billionaires) to another one as instructed…).
It’s basically a mud fight between those believing that hammers are inherently evil and need to be destroyed and those that think everything in this world is a nail. Nothing in-between.
AI is a tool and the problem world wide is that nearly everyone is using the tool wrong
Maybe if the tool is so finicky that it’s practically impossible to get right, it’s a bad tool? For sure millions of programmers are just prompting it wrong… Can’t be that it’s just not as great a tool as the AI overlords claim
As long as the code checkers know and understand what happens, I dont see the problem with the code having been written by a tool
Until the code checkers resort to LLMs because the agentic coders submit so much code for review. I
will just let AI run over this one time, what could go wrong? I’ll tell AI to generate test cases beforehand to make sure it gets the implementation right. Bad tests never lead to problems right?
Or maybe, just maybe people eating up a constant stream of propaganda produced by those whose whole financial future is tied to AI being the universal solution to every problem (and some they have to create in the first place) are indeed a problem.
Just because 24/7 advertising tells you to hammer in screws doesn’t mean it’s the smart thing to do. And neither does it show how useless a hammer is as a tool.
It’s so funny when they try to argue that the conditions around it are somehow different and make it unethical. Like yeah, I’m against fascism and climate change, but all our previous tooling was also built on unethical grounds, this isn’t any different. You like trains? The railroads were built by slave labor, extracting the fuel displaces indigenous people and hurts the environment, and folks like Carnegie used their train-powered wealth for their own personal benefit to the detriment of the public. Does that mean taking a train is unethical?
This might get me banned here but I mostly agree with him
AI is a tool and the problem world wide is that nearly everyone is using the tool wrong
But used right, it can be a huge benefit. We know how deeply checked and tested all code is (who doesn’t remember the continuous Linus rants?) so why does it matter if submitted code covers a bug that was discovered through AI, or even written by AI? As long as the code checkers know and understand what happens, I dont see the problem with the code having been written by a tool
Obligatory AI doesn’t exist, its LLM’s, and LLM’s are tools, and tools are fine as long as you use them well.
If companies suddenly started making two meter long chainsaws and people started running around with these chainsaws cutting little girls in half, then yeah, people would rightly question if we shouldn’t ban those tools too.
Force AI companies to be responsible for how their products are used and wait to see how fast things would get better.
And for developers: as long as every commit is reviewed and checked by humans, to me its just another tool being used to make Linux better
For those arguing the water of energy and the theft of intellectual property, it’s the same point: governments need to put rules in place to control the stupid growth of data centers, AI companies must be held yo account for the data they’ve stolen, absolutely. However, that doesn’t mean that LLM’s are tools without any use
I have seen a turn in the tide in the past few months. Whereas online forums discussing LLM tools for coding used to be near 100% brigade against them with mostly bluff and bluster and no real basis for the arguments, attitudes have been softening. I actually read one rather long thread with 90%+ support for the tools - not blind enthusiasm with no evidence, but clear statements from users about what is working well for them and what still needs improvement. All in all, work with the new tools seems to be going better “in the trenches” than work without used to.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if you wrote the code, an LLM wrote the code, your cat tapped it out, or aliens communicated it by blinking their home sun… you check it, it works to your satisfaction, you submit it for review and merge for use by others. In all those scenarios, it’s “your code” - the LLM, your cat, aliens, none of them are going to stand up and defend the quality of the product. If you don’t really understand why what your cat wrote works, you probably shouldn’t sumbit it. Especially the alien code should be carefully examined before running, but at the end analysis it’s the code that matters, not its provenance.
I don’t think the arguments against it had no basis. It’s clear that those tools have become really useful, but a huge chunk of those arguments are ethical about the environmental and economic impact.
What I’m seeing is that those arguments are beign faded out, along with those that talked about it as if LLMs didn’t work as expected.
They are clearly useful now, and it can’t be said that they aren’t anymore, but those example that Linus gave minify the other problems and it makes it seems that anyone that does not abide by AI is a fool and an elitist, which I don’t think that’s the case.
I think that this position makes how you wrote your matter for some people.
I have never seen an economic or environmental argument that puts objective numbers in context, how much more energy, water, etc. is AI using or projected to use? It’s all handwaving as if every single ChatGPT query is burning down a Macaw’s home tree in the rain forest and polluting a small town’s water supply, single handedly raising the average ocean temperature 5C.
Back in the late 80s, there was a large contingent of the workforce who felt they were “too old to learn the computer.” Linus, and I, were getting our starts around then and we were the young upstarts using this “solitare playing machine” to do “a few little tricks, not sure if there’s actual value to justify the cost.” Through the 90s there was a good 20% or more of the workforce that probably would have been more effective in their jobs if they would have “skilled up” on “that computer stuff,” but they didn’t and we all got through.
Adopting AI is going to be easier than learning how to use Win95 when you’re coming from dictation, letter openers and interoffice memos delivered on paper, but I won’t be surprised or disappointed if a significant chunk of the workforce stays away from AI for a whole variety of reasons, and that’s fine. I also highly encourage those using AI to ensure that it’s actually improving their product, not just making something passable faster.
Pedigree and provenance, whose child wrote this paper, who they studied under, where they grew up, all of that matters, a lot, to a lot of people, in a lot of fields. In computer code, particularly in computer code like the Linux kernel, it shouldn’t.
Because the public discussion devolved into some insane fight between people ideologically against any AI (funnily often the argument “it’s stealing other people’s work” is coming from people that are fundamentally against copyrights in every other case) and some not less crazy people believing that AI is their new lord and savior (and a lot of them are paid or the followers to said paid influencers you just changed one idol (tech billionaires) to another one as instructed…).
It’s basically a mud fight between those believing that hammers are inherently evil and need to be destroyed and those that think everything in this world is a nail. Nothing in-between.
Maybe if the tool is so finicky that it’s practically impossible to get right, it’s a bad tool? For sure millions of programmers are just prompting it wrong… Can’t be that it’s just not as great a tool as the AI overlords claim
Until the code checkers resort to LLMs because the agentic coders submit so much code for review. I will just let AI run over this one time, what could go wrong? I’ll tell AI to generate test cases beforehand to make sure it gets the implementation right. Bad tests never lead to problems right?
Or maybe, just maybe people eating up a constant stream of propaganda produced by those whose whole financial future is tied to AI being the universal solution to every problem (and some they have to create in the first place) are indeed a problem.
Just because 24/7 advertising tells you to hammer in screws doesn’t mean it’s the smart thing to do. And neither does it show how useless a hammer is as a tool.
It’s so funny when they try to argue that the conditions around it are somehow different and make it unethical. Like yeah, I’m against fascism and climate change, but all our previous tooling was also built on unethical grounds, this isn’t any different. You like trains? The railroads were built by slave labor, extracting the fuel displaces indigenous people and hurts the environment, and folks like Carnegie used their train-powered wealth for their own personal benefit to the detriment of the public. Does that mean taking a train is unethical?
Things were bad before AI, so let’s make them worse.