354
No, the kernel has not gone "Full AI Slop Code"
(lemmy.world)
There appears to be a few bad actors in the Lemmy community spreading ragebait for personal gain
In fact, the same mechanisms added at the beginning to catch bad human written code are the exact same that catch bad AI code
- No, the Linux kernel DOES NOT use AI to automatically approve code for inclusion. As far as I can tell, there are no plans to do so
- The Kernel actually has a huge number of maintainers. As part of the process, all patches are reviewed by a human who provide feedback as part of the process, and patches get bounced back and forth multiple time.
- Patches don't just magically go straight to master. The maintainers generally have their own branches where it goes to, then it goes to staging trees like Linux-Next. It goes through many eyes, and many tests by the end. The idea that AI code is overrunning the kernel is rediculous
- Maintainers also check that the code meets coding guidelines and is written properly, and solves the problem they are trying to solve. Yes, they also ensure the code isn't slop
- LLM's though might be used to identify obvious problems with the code (which they are VERY good at), or even identify code that doesn't follow coding guidelines.
- The only thing that matters is the human who submitted the code, as they should be checking the code submitted anyway (including LLM generated code)
Writing bad code isn't something new, and isn't unique to LLM's. Coders (and it seems some "journalists") have been writing slop since computers were invented.
The process hasn't gotten less stringent (probably even MORE stringent as there is an additional set of robotic eyes that can also check), and the same mechanisms that were put in place to catch badly written code 10 years ago, are still there now.. With no changes.
The ethics sucks, but that's an entirely different conversation. AI companies should be taxed and forced to pay royalties to creators imho (and yes, that would instantly kill the industry).. And, it should be Opt in specifically.
But, that's not what people are arguing about when calling the kernel "AI Slop". The bad information I've seen is that standards have dropped and even claims that kernel patches aren't being reviewed properly. Some are even suggesting that the only review that happens is AI.
Bad AI patches are no different to Bad human patches.. And the process has always been to identify bad patches specifically. The process doesn't need to change
If anything, the standards have actually been raised because initial code reviews with AI are possibly better at identifying code that doesn't follow coding standards, identifying common bugs (or similar patch attempts that were tried in the past but don't work), or obvious bugs
Why is it an entirely different conversation? Or rather, why do you think that this conversation is not what the AI-opposition are concerned about? (At least some of us are)
By analogy, many of us leaped in to social media 20 years ago. 15+ years later, there was wide recognition that the new technology brought with it a shitload of undesirable outcomes that were completely unpredictable at the outset. The same can be said of fossil fuel use, as well as factory automation. Why would you not take lessons from those? Especially given what you know about the arseholes running the GenAI companies?
Here are some quotes from the article we all know we're talking about:
These are just from the first few opening paragraphs. I could keep going.
Now here are some of the top Lemmy comments:
So yes, the AI opposition absolutely is concerned with the maintainers welcoming slop into the codebase. This is why we needed someone like @auzy1@lemmy.world to step in and make a post clarifying the situation.
It's a completely different conversation because I've never heard of AI slop referred to in that context imho (but thats my opinion).
And, I completely agree.. But, the problem is, that actually gives other platforms a HUGE competitive advantage, and it gives hackers a huge advantage too
For sure, there's a cat's-out-of-the-bag element. But that doesn't give those of us with more ethics an excuse to act as if we don't have them.
You better let the hackers know you're being ethical then. Because they're not going to keep using AI to identify security flaws
I've gone through a few automated security reports out of curiosity and they were bizarre rather than useful. I'm sure for stuff like the kernel it's actually very useful and important, but I'm skeptical that the economics of agents make sense for anyone other than big governments and corpos running them, so rather than random hackers I expect corporate espionage to make use of these tools, considering how expensive it is to get the hardware you need to run open models, then how expensive it is to keep it running and cooling, and then the fact that it will degrade with use.
I'm sure it will get more efficient eventually, or at the very least it will be much cheaper to acquire the hardware needed for these models in a few years as China keeps developing its silicon industry, then it will be cheaper for random folks to use these tools for detecting vulnerabilities on random systems, but as it stands today these machines burn absurd amounts of money, and for the applications I've interacted with, the bugs were very much irrelevant as they required giving the end user access to internal apis and not use any sanity checks, which is absurd with everything that's user input related.
I'd turn that right back around on you. Why not take lessons from those things? Fossil fuels have done horrible damage to the environment and factory automation has caused major labor relations problems in certain countries. But do you know what they both also have in common with AI? The problems OVERWHELMINGLY come from the top 1% wealthiest people/companies using them. Climate change is not caused by individuals. Individuals using 3D printers/automation are not the ones causing labor issues. And people using AI individually are not the issue. It's the companies. And in fact in both of those situations as well REFUSING to use the technology at all only harms you and your movement. 3D printing can help individual people deal with a few massive factories monopolizing basic things and wiping out the infrastructure we need to make things locally. Refusing to use fossil fuels at all only leads to personal economic issues because society is so structured around them you can't avoid it realistically. Then AI is causing these open source projects to be bombarded with new code submissions to the point the only possible way they can keep functioning is to use that very AI to try and sort through it all.
The lessons are that the ones we should be fighting are the rich. Policing the actions of individuals is a losing battle and counter productive.
Absolutely agree, hence my link to the Luddite wikipedia page elsewhere in the thread.
Currently, LLMs are being used as a tool of the rich to gain more control over broader society.
I'm not trying to police individuals. Linus is acting as a spokesperson and leader of a major organisation, I'm only interested in what he does in that capacity.
That is a good point and I agree, people might get lazy with AI but thats doing a disservice to the same people who were lazy without it tbh.
The existing devs haven't changed and there's no reason to believe AI will change them more than anything else going on.