- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
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Hot Take: IMO, using generated code is fine, if it goes through the exact same due diligance as normal code. (unit tests, is the algo optimised, etc.)
Only if you don’t care about your own cognitive decline, property theft, and climate damage
the destruction of the consumer electronics market …
And what will you say when 80% of all climate saving technology gets invented using AI?
This is like saying you should dig with bare hands even though drilling machines have been invented.
Drilling machines are not made by forcibly kidnapping diggers and making them motion-capture their movements for a robot that pollutes and consumes water by ignoring previous green regulations.
The first robot is going to be shit. Eventually we will have a robot that will have less climate impact so much so that a human would be more load on climate and more polluting. Where will you take all your hate then? Should human diggers be illegal?
Training and LLM using your code isn’t same as kidnapping you. Your freedom of movement still exists during and after LLM gets trained.
I agree they should pay full fines and maybe a temporary ban due to and proportional to their crime. And so should Taylor Swift and every other celebrity causing disproportionately more pollution.
LLM and AI is the inevitability now. You and I better prepare for a world where we can sell skill even after AI.
It’s not all bad - that shouldn’t discount their crime punishment, but it will go and discover next billion things about human body operation and will make you healthy and strong and will cure cancer, make us far more environmentally friendly than what humans can ever hope of achieving without AI and LLMs.
I feel like people parroting these tropes uncritically are the ones who should be worried about their own cognitive decline.
Such a strong science backed rebuttal.
I’m gonna go rethink my entire life now.
Being aware of the numerous massive lawsuits currently being levied against AI companies for their theft, reading research papers on cognitive decline in AI users, and being aware of where the majority of energy in the US comes from, especially for new AI datacenters, really does have a cognitive impact, but it isn’t decline.
As strong a rebuttal as a parrot requires. I also love how you lump together a whole bunch of issues inherent in capitalism in your complaint further illustrating that you’re not able to put together a coherent argument.
Are we wrong tho, and why?
The energy consumption trope in particular hasn’t been true for a while now. You can literally run models on your laptop for most tasks, and these are models that have capability that needed a data centre literally less than a year go. Meanwhile, the whole notion of people offloading their cognitive capacity to models is based on a handful of studies with tiny samples. So yes, you are wrong, and you just run around uncritically repeating nonsense thinking you’re being really profound.
So we can stop building new AI datacenters? :D
I mean that’s already happening. Less than half of the proposed ones is being built, and once the bubble pops I don’t think even the ones that are currently being started will get finished.
Glad to read some good news this morning.
Programmers already spend about as-much of their time, if not more, reading other’s code as they do writing their own. It doesn’t mater if that “other’s code” is AI generated or not.
There’s an argument to be made about excessive vs not-enough commenting, but that’s not where you went, and its clear you have negligible programming experience, or creative experience for that matter, to be coming after the concept of sharing code like-so.
One wonders how many books you’ve read, to be pretending that reading a book without paying for it, even borrowing from a library, is theft. Stick with the environmental costs arguments - its what you are personally suited to argue, and far more urgent than the rest.
Programmers already spend about as-much of their time, if not more, reading other’s code as they do writing their own.
And how is this an argument in favor of AI code? If 5-10 percent of you job used to be writing code and now you dropped it by half, that’s not very effective of optimization. Especially if the code you now have to review takes more time to review due to it being generated by AI.
and its clear you have negligible programming experience, or creative experience for that matter, to be coming after the concept of sharing code like-so.
As someone with several years of experience as a programmer: fuck off with this elitist nonsense
and its clear you have negligible programming experience, or creative experience for that matter, to be coming after the concept of sharing code like-so.
As someone with several years of experience as a programmer: fuck off with this elitist nonsense
Well said. Bit of a Straw Man, there.
Why would you let keeping-up with AI code cut-into the amount of time you spend writting code? Your conflating Torvalds being okay with/allowing programmers using a tool PROPERLY with Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft and their ilk shoving it down everyone’s throats, proper usage be damned.
Lol. Way to show how little you know. I swear AI bros get the most butt hurt over provable stuff.
I’ve stated my experience elsewhere but I’m a senior software engineer, 20 something years of experience. I have actually created a neural network from the ground up for a previous company. But sure, go off about how little experience I have.
So you helped create the problem, only so you could show it to be a problem, then turn around and sell us the solution, eh?
Between the two of us, you are literally the AI bro. Eating your own shit and calling it gourmet. I’ve stayed the fuck away from the software industry, let-alone AI, my entire life because I grew-up with and around would-be authoritative rent-seekers like you.
20 something years of software-industry experience is still mostly copying/rehashing the work of those who came before - you didn’t create shit, just re-packaged it in a way your company could sell.
The ground-up? Gotta go a lot further back than 20 years to claim that. Your name’s not on the patents or textbooks, so by your arguments, you’ve stolen every bit of it you ever consumed and then turned-around and applied, and since you didn’t invent it yourself you can’t even really understand it.
Again, that’s your argument because you can’t concieve of the idea that something you “created” off the work of those who came before you could ever approach the understanding you must claim certainty of to speak with such authority.
One of us wants to turn off the money-printing machine because its un-sustainable. You, however would rather focus on the insanity that is Intellectual Property Rights. Our taxes paid for all of that shit.
I pay authors, artists, musicians, and yes, I buy software, even knockoff stuff when its less enshittified than the original has become. I’ll bet you’re more afraid of AI realizing the burden en-shittification creates than you are even slightly concerned about anyone going un-paid for original code.
All I’ll say before moving on is legitimately you should maybe go touch grass.
Neural network does not mean LLM. I’m strongly against them for so many reasons. This is the problem with calling it all AI. My stuff was not generative, it was pattern recognition for a safety program for testing so companies could be held accountable.
Just step outside and smell the roses before you have a heart attack.
Its all pattern-recognition. Your side of the debate is arguing that training on patterns is theft of said patterns, the same way industries are fighting reverse-engineering and right-to-repair in the legal sphere. I may not spend most of my time working and playing out-doors, but I woud wager I have always spent more time doing-so, and still-do, compared to yourself.
Spent most of my life being told I’m un-motivated and un-serious for prioritizing life over work, work in physical mediums over digital, and avoiding the “defense” or marketting industries, just to be told I’m un-informed or “clearly agitated” when I engage with those who took the opposite route.
Look in the mirror; Did I say you should feel guilt or be unable to sleep at night? Yes, I’m fully aware the people who think as I described “you” are few and far between among those who can even do what you do, but you described me as one of them first.
You also never engaged with my statements on the origins of modern code, even and especially pattern recognition and neural networks, so here we are.
Everyone on all sides is so quick to rule out anyone they engage with as un-informed, a vested-interest with an agenda, or “lacking standing” - that’s how we got to a state where almost every elected official started from a degree in politics or law. Meanwhile, I repeat, taxpayers payed for all of it, the same ones who have also been paying the creator-“class” all-along.
Only if you don’t care about your own cognitive decline
That sounds like Socrates’ argument that writing would weaken people’s memories.
And absolutely, people will probably forget the syntax by heart if they don’t type it as frequently. Personally, knowing syntax is not very valuable to me, as it’s just a means to an end. And whether that leads to cognitive decline or not, is really up to who’s using the tool.
Saying it leads to cognitive decline is saying you can’t use an LLM and have critical thinking, which I can’t agree with.
That sounds like Socrates’ argument that writing would weaken people’s memories.
Saying it leads to cognitive decline is saying you can’t use an LLM and have critical thinking, which I can’t agree with.
That’s not me saying it. MIT, Harvard, and others have released numerous studies that show using LLMs does exactly that, reduce critical thinking. You can disagree all you want but until you do the science you’re disagreeing with a growing body of actual experts.
Are those studies in the context of software development? What are the tasks at hand? Do they evaluate critical thinking on matters that people actually care about or on chores? Were they instructed to use LLMs in a particular way that is equivalent to their personal preference?
You can’t pull a wildcard saying something like that because it’s too broad of a conclusion.
This is where you go look at any of the studies and start figuring out for yourself.
They’ve been looking at it in several contexts including software development, general problem solving, reading comprehension, writing ability, and more.
In some they were instructed to use LLMs certain ways, in others they weren’t. That’s the neat thing about so many studies being done is they’ve used a wide set of methodologies.
well, you didn’t link any and you’re the one generalizing it, so the proof is on you to provide. I doubt their conclusions are like you’re making them sound.
I didn’t link any because the internet exists. Spend literally five seconds on google.
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6097646
Their conclusions are right in the abstract in black and white terms. And this is just a teeny tiny sample of the papers that exist all saying the same thing.
Yeah, they never are. Scientific conclusions are generally a lot more nuanced and cautious than what this guy’s claiming. He only read headlines.
Firmly agree. I spent 6 years coding in python as a daily language, then I swapped to using nodejs for 10 years, only using python on and off. I went to make a basic script with python the other day and I had to look up how to convert a set over to a list.
If you don’t use it, you lose it is fully valid.
Not true. You came into the problem knowing:
- I need to process data according to rules
- Python can solve this
- I need a set data structure
- I need to convert that to a list data structure
- …
That’s the thoughts of a good engineer. You don’t think in code and you shouldn’t have to. Loosing your memory on the particular syntax is hardly an issue. You’ll still churn out a small program in under a day. You need to remember that people who really don’t know how to code take months for a product half as good.
Why should anyone seriously concern themselves with memorizing all the syntaxes? That’s like memorizing all the dates in History class. It takes so much bandwidth away from other concerns with higher payout. Go learn some architecture, some risk management, stuff like that.
Socrates didn’t have access to modern science. This shit rots your brain.
You’re the proof that it’s true.
Sorry. :D
Don’t be sorry, that poster walked right into it. Have you met anybody who actually checks code before just putting on production servers? Maybe, but the shareholders need moar monies guy. Proof-reading code is so 2010’s.
Exactly, the argument that whether the code was written entirely by hand or produced by an LLM is the wrong thing to focus on. To see why, we have to consider how software development actually works at scale.
There’s a view that code written by hand has to be more intentional, almost has to be by definition since it requires the maintainer to actually put it in there themselves. That’s, of course, true but once a project grows past a certain size or it has multiple maintainers, nobody really has the totality of the code in their heads. So, any new code that’s added is always done with limited understanding. Code being written by hand should not be equated with it expressing the intent faithfully; if that were the case, then we’d never have software bugs. Humans make mistakes all the time as is clearly evidenced by there being no lack of buggy code predating LLM use.
I’m also not intimately familiar with most of the code in the projects I’ve been maintaining over the years. Any code I’ve written even a few months ago might as well have been written by someone else. When I need to make changes, I read through the code and figure out what it’s doing, and I rely on the test harness to make sure I don’t introduce regressions.
It’s simply not feasible for humans to keep the entirety of large projects in their heads all at once. When you’re working on a project, you’re constantly forgetting and relearning code as you go. And the situation is even worse for projects where multiple people work together where nobody knows what everyone else was thinking. We look at the code and try to build up sufficient context in our heads to make the necessary changes. When we misjudge that context or misunderstand existing code, then we end up making mistakes.
The way we judge whether projects are actually solid is by the level of specification and testing they have, the experience of the developers, and amount of usage they see in the wild. All of these same tools work just as well with LLM generated code as they do with code written by hand.
Farming out design decisions to the LLM without reviewing the output or doing proper testing will almost certainly produce low quality code, but that is no different from somebody just slapping some code together to make a kludge rather than really thinking through a problem. Working with LLMs does not mean farming out your thinking to the machine. What these tools actually do is automate the mechanical aspect of producing the code. Once it is written, you can read it, understand it, and change it as you would with any other code.
TL;DR: Merged code has to meet existing quality standards. What tools were used to create it is irrelevant.
For all his great work on Linux (and git and others) Torvalds was never into activism so much. He declined GPLv3 (yes it would be impossible to get all contributors to sign for it). He’s always been an “open source pragmatist”, which is fine I guess. And I really respect his work. But at these important political points, we need someone like Stallman who has consistently proven to be on the right side of the debate
This. Google would not be fucking us with Play Integrity and other DRM craps if Linus made the kernel GPLv3 licensed. It would have been a dreamland to have hackable phones, TVs and a whole lot of IoT devices where the users would be controlling them instead of other way around.
Nah, they just would have either used something else, or fucked us with some other way. The kernel license just allowed them to do it like this.
If they’re gonna make proprietary black boxes of spying, I’d rather they spend their own money for it rather than using the code created by the selfless FOSS contributors, ngl.
Just because fascism-lovers desire a dystopia doesn’t mean we have to make it easy for them.
You seem to have a very idealized idea of how selfless this whole thing is. Google has sponsored a lot of work in the kernel, so have multiple corporations over the years. This is not some puppies and raibows shit here.
It just happens to work really well because the license and multiple interest of a good kernel do just that: a good kernel.
Surveillance issues and too strong corporations are an issue with your government, not the kernel
I’m not absolving governments at all so I’m not quite antithetical to this position either. I understand that a GPL license might have meant less corporate incentives but I also do despise how most corporations are moving these days so it is what it is I guess.
I seen alot of people say “AI is just a tool” ngl There is nothing wrong with that it’s just a little overused
It feels like marketing speech to me at this point. Like a new form of “it’s the newest model.”
Ehh
There is nothing wrong with that it’s just a little overused
That’s one of the problems of companies devaluing and abusing language so much that words are in danger to lose any meaning. It is a difference however whether Torvalds uses such a word, or a corporation advertising bullshit. It is really clear that corporations want to replace software developers.
Maybe your right
with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it.
Ok regardless of your opinion on AI this is just stupid. No one is forking and maintaining the entire linux kernal.
I don’t generally take issue LLMs used as a tool, but I do have a huge problem with lazy slop slingers. I also don’t like that the frontier models are closed source and rent-seeking, especially when they were trained on copyleft code and by all rights should themselves be open source if they were respecting the licenses. I’d think Linus would have something to say about that.
IMO, a decent philosophy is that LLMs can be useful tools, but if anyone can tell you used a LLM, you failed. People should have a healthy fear of being ridiculed for outsourcing their critical thinking. Anyone using a ton of tokens shouldn’t be commended; instead, the quality of their work should be called into question because they’re likely using LLMs as a crutch instead of a tool. Commits by Claude probably mean the person didn’t review the diff to clean up the slop, and also probably didn’t understand the changes well enough to write a clear commit message themselves. I wouldn’t want to see any commits crediting Claude in the Linux kernel.
Edit:
I’d also think that if Linus likes LLMs and wants to see quality tech democratized, he’d be advocating for FOSS LLMs under the Linux foundation where all code and training data are open source. What we have now with Anthropic and “OpenAI” is the equivalent of cloud-hosted Windows, and open weight models like Qwen are more like Windows XP in that they can be run locally, but they’re still proprietary and can’t be inspected, modified, or built upon. We need the Linux of LLMs.
Dude, this is lemmy. The headline should be: “AI Slop Allowed in the Linux!”
I locally host gemma 4 e2b on a very modest spec laptop to help summarize large texts, as a rudimentary translation tool, and just as a toy. It makes sense. I see small coding models on hugging face all the time, I think we’ve hit a point where it’s just too efficient not to atleast entertain a little bit of slop in your workflow.
Sigh.
The straw manning in this thread is amazing.
Linus allowing AI? This means the linux kernal will be flooded with unverified slop!
Fuck you, Linus Torvalds.
Truthfully I feel like this too sometimes. I get he made it and I understand that but what happened to the “community” and “open” part of it why does this dude get to call all the shots on everything related to Linux.
Reminds me of Satya Nadella with Windows. (Even though he didn’t invent it but calls the shots just the same way.)
Lmao. This went over exactly how i expected here. Oh well ludites gonna ludite.
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Tell me you didn’t read what he said without telling me you didn’t read what he said
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Doubling down on not reading what he said without saying you’re doubling down on not reading what he said is a bold move
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e> Linux users: switch from Windows to Linux to avoid ai slop
Linus, an out of touch idiot: Actually vibe coded slop in the OS is good!
I don’t like LLMs for a number of reasons - the theft, the environmental impact, the deceptive marketing - and also because I am really pissed about the abysmal quality which my AI-pilled coworker produces.
But in difference to Windows and most commercial software, the Linux kernel project has high quality standards, and I have some faith they’ll keep them.
Also, the cited mail discussion is not about AI generating unreviewed code - which I still see as very questionable - but about checking code for bugs and deficiencies. Given the amount of CVEs found by LLMs, I see no way around that for important infrastrcture projects like the kernel.
Many people are not amused by the hype - me neither. But AI could unexpectedly help open source in a few ways:
- it will become clearer that quality matters. We alrrady see that with Windows - Linux is getting many new users.
- We might see a trend to source code rewriting and re-use instead of using libraries. Libraries are pervasively used now, and that has drawbacks like bloat and dependency hell.
- Copyright is rapidly losing importance. This is really bad for artists and book authors. But for most (not all) programmers not, since copyright in software was mostly a tool to protect profits of corporations. Software development at its core is a service.
- Issues of autonomy and control are becoming more important than ever. The kernel is a pragmatic project, but it being free to use and modify is absolutely central - that’s why it uses the GPL - and we are also seeing every day that Stallman was and is right more than anybody would desire.
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Time to fork Linux
best of luck with that
Why would anyone want a chatbot to shit code? If you need to reuse (your own or others’) code, use functions. Functions are the right approach, or maybe try subroutines, procedures or methods. Flooding code bases with this verbose incoherent mess creates a lot of technical debt. Who will clean up after Linus and at what cost? Should not weeding out complexity and fixing bugs be a priority over creating more chaos?
If your chatbot is shitting code, don’t contribute to anything important. LLM is a navigation, you’re the one behind the wheel, and ultimately responsible for where you end up.
