Linux Creator Backs AI-Assisted Coding, but Only in Skilled Hands

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is embracing AI tools to help write kernel code, and the move has drawn sharp criticism. Commentators have called it "slop", and one online commenter suggested it was a publicity stunt driven by the Linux Foundation. The Register's author, who says he has known Torvalds for decades, rejects that view. He argues Torvalds has not dropped his standards and would not do anything with Linux simply because someone else wanted it.

The article does acknowledge that suspicion of AI is reasonable. It points to model collapse, where AI systems learn from other AI output and drift from the truth, and to concerns that AI companies pay little attention to the copyrights and licences on the open source code their tools learned from. The author also notes that these companies resist paying writers and artists for their work.

Even so, the author argues that for programming the ship has sailed. You still cannot rely on casual "vibe coding" to deliver production-quality software. But when an experienced developer such as Torvalds uses AI, it can be genuinely useful. The headline suggests kernel maintainers care less about who used AI and more about whether the code is good, and they have little patience for low-effort "drive-by" patches. This excerpt covers only the opening of the article.