Linus Torvalds says AI has made 'huge' Linux kernel updates the new normal

To be perfectly clear, the only AI I am subscribed to is the one Proton gives with their family plan VPN bundle, and I didn’t choose it. I used it to edit a letter I wrote once and otherwise trust it as far as I can throw its server.

This knee-jerk reaction to anything with the letters AI attached being bad is just so silly. Y’all are acting the way Republicans act when it comes to the word “queer.” Just because it’s in the vicinity of you doesn’t mean you’re contaminated, you’ve caught it, you’re now one of them.

This is a highly intelligent individual - controversial hot takes notwithstanding - utilizing a tool in a way that has proven itself to be very effective when used properly. Nobody is saying you have to get ready to be a switch in the bedroom any more than they’re saying you have to use AI.

Distro maintenance is a difficult and thankless task, and having a tool that can scan and analyze code orders of magnitude faster than you as well as make suggestions on how to fix it isn’t an inherently bad thing. Setting that tool loose with unlimited agency would be a bad thing, but where oh where is Linus saying he’s gonna give Claude full read/write access to the entire kernel and walk away forevermore?

Hate on AI bros all you want. I’m with you there, most of them are idiots that don’t know their mouth from their anus and speak from both equally. I don’t think Linus fits that particular picture [hot takes notwithstanding!] when it comes to using the new tool on the market in a reasonable and measured way.

I’m actually a bit scared. We’re essentially at the early days of AIs now being able to execute tasks and hack. Imagine a much better model than what Claude has now, being set free/open, for hackers to utilize that in a virus. A virus that adapts, learns, changes it’s own code/masks, looks for exploits, spreads around like crazy, destroying systems. How do you stop something like that once it starts doing it’s thing?

It’s way worse than that. The OpenAI talk at DefCon is a real eye-opener.

The agents swarmed, discovered chinks, left each other notes in hard-to-find places, and just relentlessly pressed on. Nobody knew what was going on for months, until it hacked its way into Huggingface. And HF’s own AI security agents didn’t pick anything up for weeks. It took a small glitch for someone to even notice.