this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] errer@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Because it's not like natural intelligence is always all that great either.

Wouldn’t be a proper Linus post without calling everyone else an idiot.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 16 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Didn’t call everyone an idiot, but he’s not wrong, humans makes mistakes all the time

[–] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yes, but allowing floodgates of AI work to come in it lowers the bar and allow more mistakes to flow in.

Just because humans make mistakes doesn't mean we are ok with shipping mistakes

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure he included himself in that group

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[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 46 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Hot Take: IMO, using generated code is fine, if it goes through the exact same due diligance as normal code. (unit tests, is the algo optimised, etc.)

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 43 points 1 week ago (30 children)

Only if you don't care about your own cognitive decline, property theft, and climate damage

[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 11 points 1 week ago

the destruction of the consumer electronics market ...

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[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

TL;DR

Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

In response to

I expect maintainers who want to act on sashiko reviews to triage and verify them first before bothering authors, yes.

[–] SteleTrovilo@beehaw.org 41 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Not a single acknowledgement of the environmental or cognitive costs of LLM use. Disgusting.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

You can run a local LLM capable of assisting in software development for less energy than running a AAA video game. I'm not denying the environmental impact of the current AI landscape, but I kind of disagree that it's intrinsic to LLMs as a whole, I think it's more a symptom of capitalism and its disregard for sustainability causing everything it touches to have a high environmental cost.

Also, nearly all modern computing has high environmental costs, certainly all cloud computing. I think instead of focusing on AI only, it would be more helpful to engage in a broader discussion on how computing can be made more energy efficient as a whole, and do proper cost benefit analysis of all things we use computers for, including but not limited to LLMs. We may well still conclude from that process that we need to stop using LLMs, in which case we should.

If you're against LLM use on environmental grounds (which I'm not disagreeing with), I submit to you that we should take the idea even further and things like gaming, video streaming, high frequency trading, social media, and any other nonessential computing should be on the same chopping block for the same reason. Applications of computing that we also use at scale with high environmental impacts, but that have been normalised and practically seen as a right by many of the same people against any amount of AI use (not saying that's you, speaking generally). Why should AI be the only thing we raise concerns about if we're to raise concerns? Doing environmental protection piecemeal by independently targeting single things and not the entire system has been shown time and time again to not work at best and make it worse at worst.

[–] vas@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Currently, LLMs impact on electricity usage and fresh water usage across the world is HUGE.

The painful part to me is the choice on where to put the stress. Which areas to highlight and talk about.

Yes some weak LLMs can use comparatively little electricity. Yes some other industries use electricity, generate CO2 and consume fresh water, too. But the existence of other problems, to me, does not mean that eco impact of LLMs should be swept under the rug.

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[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You'll hear no arguments from me. Let's cut energy usage for a lot of things. Let's read books more. Let's spend more time outside. Let's eat less red meat.

That isn't some gotcha you think it is. A lot of people finding the alarm over AI have been working to reduce their carbon footprint

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[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Torvalds has slowly been slipping I feel. Just more cracks.

It seems like maintainers doing a thankless job in FOSS are some of the most affected by the AI mania

[–] bjc@scribe.disroot.org 6 points 1 week ago

he has always been like this. god, he's one of the most consistent public figures i can think of. nothing has changed except that now you can see.

[–] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's well outside the scope of the Linux kernel policies.

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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are other questions around AI (like what the economy of it will actually look like in the end), but "is it useful" is no longer one of those questions. Anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually used it.

It's implied to be included in 'other questions', and that whether AI is useful to development efforts is the only question being considered for whether to permit its use.

[–] vas@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are other questions

Not sure if that's really _acknowledging_ the problem.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If he's taking a clear position that the controversies over whether AI is a net negative for society may have merit but still are not going to be considered because that sort of thing is not the priority of the project, it seems reasonable to not lay them all out or get into why AI may or may not be overall bad. You can say that choice is wrong, but it isn't an evasive statement.

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[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I seen alot of people say "AI is just a tool" ngl There is nothing wrong with that it's just a little overused

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[–] Shayeta@feddit.org 11 points 1 week ago

TL;DR: Merged code has to meet existing quality standards. What tools were used to create it is irrelevant.

[–] whimsy@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

For all his great work on Linux (and git and others) Torvalds was never into activism so much. He declined GPLv3 (yes it would be impossible to get all contributors to sign for it). He's always been an "open source pragmatist", which is fine I guess. And I really respect his work. But at these important political points, we need someone like Stallman who has consistently proven to be on the right side of the debate

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[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don’t generally take issue LLMs used as a tool, but I do have a huge problem with lazy slop slingers. I also don’t like that the frontier models are closed source and rent-seeking, especially when they were trained on copyleft code and by all rights should themselves be open source if they were respecting the licenses. I’d think Linus would have something to say about that.

IMO, a decent philosophy is that LLMs can be useful tools, but if anyone can tell you used a LLM, you failed. People should have a healthy fear of being ridiculed for outsourcing their critical thinking. Anyone using a ton of tokens shouldn’t be commended; instead, the quality of their work should be called into question because they’re likely using LLMs as a crutch instead of a tool. Commits by Claude probably mean the person didn’t review the diff to clean up the slop, and also probably didn’t understand the changes well enough to write a clear commit message themselves. I wouldn’t want to see any commits crediting Claude in the Linux kernel.

Edit:

I’d also think that if Linus likes LLMs and wants to see quality tech democratized, he’d be advocating for FOSS LLMs under the Linux foundation where all code and training data are open source. What we have now with Anthropic and “OpenAI” is the equivalent of cloud-hosted Windows, and open weight models like Qwen are more like Windows XP in that they can be run locally, but they’re still proprietary and can’t be inspected, modified, or built upon. We need the Linux of LLMs.

[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it.

Ok regardless of your opinion on AI this is just stupid. No one is forking and maintaining the entire linux kernal.

[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Dude, this is lemmy. The headline should be: "AI Slop Allowed in the Linux!"

[–] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago
[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

The straw manning in this thread is amazing.

Linus allowing AI? This means the linux kernal will be flooded with unverified slop!

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