You assume humans don’t ever write sloppy code and Linux Torvalds has never before encountered someone wanting to merge in sloppy code before. If in decades he hasn’t gotten comfy with sloppy code written by humans, why would he suddenly be merging in sloppy code written by an AI? He’s never been worried about hurting the feelings of a human that’s writing sloppy, do you suppose he’s going to develop empathy for an LLM that’s writing sloppy code?
The people that go all in on vibe coding are people that aren’t very good programmers to begin with. They don’t really understand how to write code and then suddenly they can make things work quickly. Well sort of work. At least work about as well as they could with their limited skills.
People that are actually good at programming know what good code is. After decades of working with code and knowing what it’s supposed to be, you don’t suddenly become a vibe coder saying eh, it kind of works, good enough, ship it. Its the people that were never able to write high quality code to begin with that do that. It can do the job of a lazy programmer that has a low standard of quality. For a skilled developer, it can sometimes save on typing on some simple tasks, and a good developer knows when it did something wrong and be all Thanos and say “fine, I’ll do it myself”.
Yep, and even more important are the cases where coding models are used outside of actually producing code. Unit tests, red teaming, bug hunting and so on are all areas where LLMs can reduce the load on an experienced coder, allowing him to concentrate on the meaty stuff. Blindly being against the technology itself because big tech currently consists of a bunch of asshats is not a mature stance.
If AI makes Linus more (quantity) or more severely (quality) error-prone than without the AI, that, and only that is an argument against AI being a tech asset for Linus.
Just one bad Linux kernel commit slip up related to AI is not an argument.
That said, the macro impact of the AI data centers and AI on: electric power generation and grids, pollution (smelly exhaust, noise, CO2), fresh water demands, socioeconomic power imbalance exacerbation, surveillance capitalism, questionable military usages, rogue agentic AI doing hacks and crimes to fulfill oterwise legal/ethical objectives, AI chatbot relationship addiction, these are some of what I consider real and urgent problems with AI.
As an individual, his LLM carbon footprint and money used to purchase AI services aren’t going to matter at all. But him being one of the world’s highest profiled software engineers who’s openly using these tools is very good publicity for them.
I think the anti ai crowd has been focusing on the slop angle too much, the horrible malpractice of these companies is the real problem imo. If it really is only slop it will die out by itself.
I wonder how long before he gets comfy relying on it and something really shitty slips in.
Dude merges in code into the kernel originating from how many thousands of developers from around the world?
Read the LKML if you think he’s a guy that’s prone to getting comfy with merging in sub-par code.
oh he’s quick to put the brakes on other PR’s including slop code.
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-lays-down-the-law-on-ai-generated-code-yes-to-copilot-no-to-ai-slop-and-humans-take-the-fall-for-mistakes-after-months-of-fierce-debate-torvalds-and-maintainers-come-to-an-agreement
which makes me wonder how long until he’s comfy and forgets sometimes the slop comes from inside the building lol.
You assume humans don’t ever write sloppy code and Linux Torvalds has never before encountered someone wanting to merge in sloppy code before. If in decades he hasn’t gotten comfy with sloppy code written by humans, why would he suddenly be merging in sloppy code written by an AI? He’s never been worried about hurting the feelings of a human that’s writing sloppy, do you suppose he’s going to develop empathy for an LLM that’s writing sloppy code?
The people that go all in on vibe coding are people that aren’t very good programmers to begin with. They don’t really understand how to write code and then suddenly they can make things work quickly. Well sort of work. At least work about as well as they could with their limited skills.
People that are actually good at programming know what good code is. After decades of working with code and knowing what it’s supposed to be, you don’t suddenly become a vibe coder saying eh, it kind of works, good enough, ship it. Its the people that were never able to write high quality code to begin with that do that. It can do the job of a lazy programmer that has a low standard of quality. For a skilled developer, it can sometimes save on typing on some simple tasks, and a good developer knows when it did something wrong and be all Thanos and say “fine, I’ll do it myself”.
Yep, and even more important are the cases where coding models are used outside of actually producing code. Unit tests, red teaming, bug hunting and so on are all areas where LLMs can reduce the load on an experienced coder, allowing him to concentrate on the meaty stuff. Blindly being against the technology itself because big tech currently consists of a bunch of asshats is not a mature stance.
Is Linus error-free pre-AI?
If AI makes Linus more (quantity) or more severely (quality) error-prone than without the AI, that, and only that is an argument against AI being a tech asset for Linus.
Just one bad Linux kernel commit slip up related to AI is not an argument.
That said, the macro impact of the AI data centers and AI on: electric power generation and grids, pollution (smelly exhaust, noise, CO2), fresh water demands, socioeconomic power imbalance exacerbation, surveillance capitalism, questionable military usages, rogue agentic AI doing hacks and crimes to fulfill oterwise legal/ethical objectives, AI chatbot relationship addiction, these are some of what I consider real and urgent problems with AI.
As an individual, his LLM carbon footprint and money used to purchase AI services aren’t going to matter at all. But him being one of the world’s highest profiled software engineers who’s openly using these tools is very good publicity for them.
I think the anti ai crowd has been focusing on the slop angle too much, the horrible malpractice of these companies is the real problem imo. If it really is only slop it will die out by itself.
so many possible upsides it’s hard to pick which one will end the species.
fml