Linus Torvalds shares his thoughts on Anti-AI coding rules on Linux mailing list.

[maybe_mbk@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft

When I look at the general situation of things, I get the urge to take cover and move to the fringe of everything. Mostly by relying less on and using less technology. Feeding the machine and the system as little as possible. Preparing for bad times. We are all witnessing a massive and widespread failure of elites on all levels.

(And I actually get Linus' point, the overt and the subtext, but it's centrist talk.)

[__jm@mastodon.social]

@epistomai there are better tools than ollama for local AI. https://sleepingrobots.com/dreams/stop-using-ollama/ explains why.

[maybe_mbk@mastodon.social]

@autiomaa @chessert @nixCraft

The point when the benevolent dictator took a wrong turn and/or lost his marbles?

[einemeh@mastodon.social]

@epistomai @nixCraft

It is not the locality that is of primary importance (though it is certainly important, just not primarily so); what is important is that the model is licensed under a free (libre) license.

- my opinion

[iainwilliammcclain@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft I use AI to scan my code and to compile apps. Does that mean I don't know the code? Nope. I just know it takes AI 30 seconds what takes me three days.

[labspokane@mas.to]

@nixCraft Does Linus have a girlfriend named, “Claudia” perchance?

[easyas314159@hachyderm.io]

@nixCraft I can’t find the post but someone pointed out recently that LLMs are not like compilers. With a compiler you generate a disposable artifact that you can reliably recreate from the input source. With LLMs you discard the input prompt and keep the output, and running the same prompt twice will generate different results. This is an infuriating stance given how much of the last decade I’ve dedicated to making reliable deterministic build pipelines.

[stefan_s_from_h@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft there's hope that Claude suggests rewriting the kernel in C++.

[biglinter@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft "nobody in their right mind"... what happened to the ring of maintainers?

well, then itll take the time it takes to put in the code... seriously, just because youre flooded doesnt always mean youll have to open the flood gates...

i remember linus saying that someday linux will become obsolete, so we are steering right into that i guess

[freevolt24@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft Two things. First, most of the time, discovering problems are easier than building complex systems, and the same goes for ML/AI models, of course. Second, ML/AI is "bound" to make mistakes, and ML/AI scientists have been saying for years that you need mistakes for ML/AI to be useful (because otherwise, it means overfitting). I understand that ML/AI tools can be helpful for productivity, but it's guaranteed that it'll make mistakes (if not intentional).

[freevolt24@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft What's the measurement against them? Is there any attempt to (officially) verify the kernel code with ML/AI, Syzbot style, not just for development? I assume ML/AI tools will soon plant some complex mistakes that are difficult for overloaded human reviewers to find out.

[syntaxseed@phpc.social]

@nixCraft Comparing deterministic tools to #AI is wild.

Yes, I would create rules about not using compilers & editors if they gave different output each time I used them, occasionally gave wrong output, sometimes gave SLIGHTLY wrong output, and were just running predictions based on my past inputs rather than following sets of rules.

#Linus

[fionasboots@tech.lgbt]

@nixCraft
This is why I'm looking at NetBSD and Plan9 (9front) because the use of AI slop in Linux woke me up to the fact that the whole ecosystem is built around profits for corporations rather than good code

[jesse@social.jelliefrontier.net]

@nixCraft Uf what a bad take. Not all tools are created equal.

“No sharp knives in here because they can be misused for violence.”

“Oh, so I guess we can’t use straws or spoons either?! For that matter, this food shouldn’t be on a plate!”

[swinburne@stopgenai.org]

@epistomai @nixCraft

AFAIK he at least slop generates python code with LLMs and confuses gen AI to be some kind of tool. How things (apparent psychosis) are going i suspect he frequently converses with the machine, too.

[jeantranscene@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft I may be wrong about that but it seems to me that the debate shouldn't be about whether an AI wrote the code or not but about code quality and whether trusted humans validate it. If your contribution goes in a queue that is reviewed at human pace and you have a storage quota for your contributions there's no way slop of any origin get into mainstream. AI or not AI becomes irrelevant. But maybe I'm overlooking something.

[mxchara@cyberpunk.lol]

@nixCraft I love it when techbros begin their argument with "I don't understand" as a rhetorical stance because it's always true in a way: they don't understand.

[jeantranscene@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft It should be easy to maintain stats on the slop producers regardless of origins and slow the worst offenders even further somehow. There's always a human motivation behind any AI production. That shouldn't be too hard to control I think.

[omnivorous_narrator@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft But also… “Amanda Caswell is an AI journalist, certified prompt engineer, and technology commentator whose work and expertise have been featured on Fox News and CBS News […] TNS owner Insight Partners is an investor in: Anthropic”

(and the article is sprinkled with weird ambiguities. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was LLM-summarized or LLM-rewritten)

[loadhigh@bitbang.social]

@nixCraft Man, that last paragraph, what a nasty guy.

My respect goes to the maintainers who manage to handle working with an asshole like this. I know I wouldn't be able to do it.