Linus Torvalds tells AI critics to fork Linux or walk away

[midian182]

A hot potato: Linus Torvalds' stance toward AI appears to be softening. After pointing out that AI tech was 90% marketing and 10% factual reality in 2024, Torvalds just said that Linux is not an "anti-AI" project, and that anyone who has an issue with this can either walk away or fork the kernel.

Torvalds' comments came in response to a discussion about anti-LLM feelings on lore.kernel.org, the official public archive for Linux kernel development mailing lists. He said that while he realizes some people really dislike AI, it's an area where he's willing to "absolutely put my foot down as the top-level maintainer."

"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. Or just walk away."

The Linux creator added that AI is a tool, just like any other, and a useful one at that. He said that while there are other questions around AI, such as what its economic impact will ultimately look like, "is it useful" was no longer one of those questions.

AI can be a "somewhat painful tool, both for maintainer workloads and just from an 'it keeps finding embarrassing bugs' standpoint," Torvalds said. "But the solution is not to put your head in the sand and sing 'La La La, I can't hear you' at the top of your voice like some people seem to do."

"We're not forcing anybody to use it, but I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it."

Torvalds admitted that AI isn't perfect, but he believes anyone who points to the technology's problems better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time. "Because it's not like natural intelligence is always all that great either," he said.

The Finnish software engineer appeared to take a more cautious approach to AI back in 2024. In addition to complaining that it was 90% marketing hype, he said it would take five years for it to become clear what AI is really useful for. It looks like that usefulness has become apparent in a shorter timeframe than expected.

– Tsarathustra (@tsarnick) October 21, 2024

In January, Torvalds said he had started using AI to write code, though only as part of a small personal project rather than on Linux. A few months later, he criticized Linux developers for filing poorly timed bug reports shortly before an RC5 release, noting that some relied on AI to flag trivial issues. He added that many of the proposed fixes were also AI-generated and often introduced unnecessary bloat into the Linux kernel instead of addressing the underlying problem.

Torvalds' comments suggest AI has already moved beyond the experimental stage for Linux, even if developers are still grappling with the extra workload, questionable fixes, and occasional kernel bloat it creates.

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Linus Torvalds tells AI critics to fork Linux or walk away

 

[mbrowne5061]

Sounds like he isn't against the concept of AI/LLM assistance with coding, which makes sense broadly speaking.

But I fully expect him to be against relying on a for-profit corporate licensing structure (I.e. Claude, Copilot, etc) being involved in any critical Linux development. I suspect he will try to come up with some way to add a reasonably capable local-run LLM to most dev environments. The latest models from the big companies already seem to be achieving diminishing returns; the improvements to coding output relative to prior models are there, but marginal, while costs increases are exponential.

Pie in the sky would an FOSS dev environment that gave you AI-assisted bug detection, automatically wrote more 'standard' modules that followed best practices, and wrote documentation; all while running on a typical desktop GPU. Let the dev work on the 'new' bits, while the AI looked over their shoulder to write the 'boring bits' of code, flag bugs for review (inc. documenting how to reproduce), and generate a draft of a Wiki for the project.

 

[LordVile95]

Of course he’ll say that they’re the ones paying him

 

[Endymio]

After pointing out that AI tech was 90% marketing and 10% factual reality in 2024...he said it would take five years for it to become clear what AI is really useful for.

He didn't "point out" a fact, he made a claim ... a claim which he's already had to walk back, as less than two years later, he himself was using AI to write code.

 

[Hecate91]

Linus must be making quite the profit from some AI companies to be saying this,
it's sad to see that even Linux isn't safe from AI ensh#$ification.
Also forking Linux even further fragmenting it into versions that might have less or no AI crapware won't help adoption of Linux at all.

 

[Lowhangingfruit]

The Linux creator added that AI is a tool, just like any other, and a useful one at that. He said that while there are other questions around AI, such as what its economic impact will ultimately look like, "is it useful" was no longer one of those questions.

This is the most profound statement. That's where things are people. If you're still one of those people saying AI is just a fad, and a bubble, and it will go away you're in denial.

The problems to deal with now are code bloat, human skill and knowledge atrophy, leveraging business competitive advantages when everyone can copy you in minutes etc.

 

[LordVile95]

Linus must be making quite the profit from some AI companies to be saying this,
it's sad to see that even Linux isn't safe from AI ensh#$ification.
Also forking Linux even further fragmenting it into versions that might have less or no AI crapware won't help adoption of Linux at all.

He earns his salary from the Linux foundation which is funded largely by…

*Checks notes*

Google, Microsoft, AWS and Meta

Think that’s your answer

 

[justarando]

I am not sure why people keep treating this man like some sort of demi-God.
The man is loud and very rude even when he is proven wrong or changes his mind

 

[OortCloud]

All these pro-AI folks completely avoid the most important reason why people hate AI. They hate it because they can see where it will lead, and they can see the societal and environmental damage it has already caused and which is only going to get far worse. Almost nothing AI provides helps the common man and it never will. In fact, it is patently obvious that the common man will be shafted by AI at every opportunity; this has already happened repeatedly. But the bro's just ignore all of that because most of them are driven by nothing but greed or in the case of a few like Linus Torvald they can't see beyond technological benefits.