Linus Torvalds used AI to fix a Linux bug, and now LLM critics on Linux face an uncomfortable choice

lists.debian.org/debian-project/…/msg00041.html

www.xda-developers.com/linus-used-ai-bug-llm-critics-face-choice/

I’m glad Linus is pragmatic about this, ethical questions aside LLM’s are a highly valuable tool in software development and they are likely to continue to improve. Any engineer fighting the use of LLM’s will ultimately find that their peers are achieving more in a shorter time then they are. Open weight LLM’s have also come a long way and are already good enough for daily use.

I think most misplaced critic comes from people not understanding or knowing the different types of AI. Some even hate all types of intelligence it seems.

Chess engines have been using AI, specifically, neural networks, for years before ChatGPT or other LLMs. Nobody complained.

Chess engines didn’t require data centers that guzzle water and spit out pollution like an 18th century factory.

Here we go again!

You conflate one type of AI with all the other ones. Call it LLM or generative AI.

I programmed AI 20 years ago, it still is AI but doesn’t use datacenters. I programmed deep neural networks ten years ago, it did not use datacenters either.

And that’s why no one is opposed to those.

You didn’t pirate the collective works of humanity to train on, while under a society that requires intellectual property rights to ensure those creators are compensated, in order to undercut them twice (once to train and once to replace them)

You didn’t pollute the sky, dry the soil, bulldoze people’s homes to make your chessbot.

You didn’t corner the market on components to brute force the solution to declare yourself computer god, where everyone must come to you for compute.

Gen AI seeks to replace humans and it’s not even sentient. I don’t give a single fuck how useful a fancy algorithm is, it’s not ok with me if it’s designed to destroy my life.