Linux

use an LLM to assist in coding properly

This is categorically impossible for any ways in which the LLM could reasonably "assist".

Putting aside any potentially elitist definitions of the word "properly" and simply taking it to mean "code that functions and isn't malware", you're stuck with the same modus operandi you get copy-pasting snippets from stack overflow and hand editing them to fit your codebase.

To wit: you still need to go over every single bit of code to determine whether or not it's safe to include in your existing codebase, and unlike stack overflow, output from an LLM isn't being simultaneously examined by other experts for flaws at the same time you're looking at it.

We need to stop treating LLM's like they're in any way a "robot programmer".

They are database reorganization engines

(data lake of indexed, ingested material)

with a static output style

(resemble human speech patterns)

that is specifically, deliberately written to deceive about its own capability and purpose.

(speak with confidence, which is a thing that a script or a program cannot have, as though it is performing a specific requested task and not just vomiting up the contents of its proverbial shelves because someone handed it an hand crafted index card that menrions a few things from the card catalog it uses)

There should be no place for that in programming.

Nobody freaks out when skilled programmers/professionals use AI

Wrong. Because there are inherent problems with ethics, such as data it has been trained on and licensing questions. Also using LLM might decrease your competence over time. This also gives too much power to those few companies who control what data and logic the Ai is fed with. Even skilled programmers, professionals or not, get lazy.

BTW I am not 100% anti Ai, but I'm not a pro vibe. I think its fine the way some developers use Ai tools. But regardless how it is used, the ethical and licensing questions remain.

Yeah, of all the people out there using Claude, he's the absolute least worrisome. He'll read the whole thing, and if he doesn't like anything at all that it does, he won't let it do it.

as long is you don't YOLO the result to the lists for other humans to de-slopify for you.

(Or not de-slopify at all.)

There's literally no one I trust more to handle llm code more than Linus.

He's not going to pass off shit in his name. He'll use it in the best possible way.

Lots of reasons to be anti-AI, but it's not all black and white. It's here to stay and it's useful. (But we ain't gonna spend 400 billion a year on it.)

People cannot seem to grasp that there is a difference in using LLMs to experiment and just blindly using code written by an LLM. You'd think they would realize Linus is never going to do the latter. Binary thinking leads to this...

I completely agree, using an open model would be far more inline with the spirit of open source.

Yeah, I’m quickly seeing a future where stuff like this AI rewrite of the Adobe suite may need to be distributed as the model that makes the software and not the software itself. If that becomes the case then we really will have entered into a world where tech bros control everything as you will quickly find yourself in a world where you can’t use the software if you don’t have the compute to make it.

"With great power comes the absolute certainty that you'll turn into a right cunt"

Linus regularly posted on Google+, it's more like he himself isn't that into foss and sees everything as a utility to use

Nobody can prove this is the case. Linus sees coding LLMs as an inevitable evolution and compares them to what compilers were for Assembly.

I don't personally think this particular use of LLMs is unethical, but using open models would definitely improve the look.

Year of the BSD desktop!

plagiarism

outright theft

It frustrates me to see that people are suddenly protective of some kind of intellectual property right of people to control creations after they've been created.

I'm pretty skeptical of AI and have my doubts that it will be a net good, but I'm definitely not gonna suddenly be pro-copyright as part of that fight. Copyright has traditionally been used to entrench corporate interests, and strengthening those protections isn't going to suddenly win a fight against some kind of AI dystopia.

I just hope he doesn't get lazy and brainrotted like I've seen happen with coworkers. People who used to call themselves "software craftsmen" now shipping 1k+ line changesets with fully generated documentation.