hello_hello [undecided, comrade/them]

What’s interesting is that the discussion in which Torvalds decides to interject in is when Pinchart brings up the ethics of using LLMs in development as Torvalds quickly points out that the goal of the project is not to be a “social warrior” (barely indistinguishable from calling others SJWs), he even makes a reference to veganism as a metaphor.

In the end, I think Giacomo Tesio’s response is the most poignant (https://lore.kernel.org/linux-media/20260716112048.2dc10a3f@hermes.development.it/)

On the other hand, legitimizing any of the several AI issues is a greet concern for the LF members [2] that includes companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft and Anthropic that are collectively exposed for trillions of dollars over the AI bubble. It’s not that you must be “pro-AI”, but if you are not, you will be countered or silenced in every influential technical spaces.

So neither inclusiveness or developers’ alienation are relevant ethical issues in this list, just political tools or not.

Linus faithfully serves the interests of his employers, so no argument, either ethical, technical or whatever, really counts here whenever its effects could annoy them.

The LF patrons are all embroiled in the western AI bubble, so it’s difficult to ascertain whether Torvalds could ever not take a positive stance or even directly advise others to use LLMs. It’s probably not worth taking Torvalds’ “anti-ethics” arguments seriously and instead look at the bigger picture: The Linux Kernel is a titanic (pun intended) C project which hits the limits of the guarantees that the C compiler and coding guidelines can provide. Using an LLM to find memory bugs is necessary considering attackers can do the same thing (with the recent Copyfail and dirtyfrag attacking vulnerable modules). In a way, LLMs are just damage control for poor engineering decisions.

The non-LLM answer was to incorporate a stronger compiler in the form of Rust for future drivers and modules (even better would be to rewrite the kernel in Rust), which eliminates this repetitive class of memory vulnerabilities. In a more centrally planned computer science field, C would be deprecated rather than become the parasitic bedrock of everything above it.

It’d also be better if we actually had multiple kernels that were supported on the level of Torvalds’ Linux git tree rather than a monoculture where everyone is destined to hover around Torvalds’ tree because “out-of-tree” linux kernel stuff is a pain, much less a fork. Also if your foundation receives millions in grants and employment contracts from silicon valley, telling others to “make a fork” isn’t a realistic measure.