From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lamorak.hansenpartnership.com (lamorak.hansenpartnership.com [198.37.111.173]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0830B291C2E for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2025 16:43:40 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=198.37.111.173 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1754412223; cv=none; b=DQJ7g34MfV6c84awJO8PcPEDlAXQjr15cSOTcE26B5H9k9Bwra41tJ7uaMsJuEskvMFltiZG13zTbC5jS9PmboVpJpEZkagx09qKRGBbWcSllDZ1hnuURbCZgHOcOaYsqeJfzYJya7cFiJ1mKqOBi5XQXFNEreNplGNk00tpJnI= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1754412223; c=relaxed/simple; bh=Ehh5Z1oD+EQzlruSY16WYVdDtite9OjByEx8P6fEmHs=; h=Message-ID:Subject:From:To:Date:In-Reply-To:References: Content-Type:MIME-Version; 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 8mT2Eh9SkH+YVOmaKsajgZgrBxA7fWmGoxXswEVxJIFj3vW7yNc0C5HaUdYa5iGOMs4kg2ht4s7yy7NRQuh7BifWjo6BQ6k4S1H+6axZucxhSV1L6zN9d+lr3Xo/vy1unzA== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable User-Agent: Evolution 3.50.3 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 On Tue, 2025-08-05 at 17:03 +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote: > Unavoidably, LLMs are the hot topic in tech right now, and are here > to stay. >=20 > This poses unique problems: >=20 > * Never before have people been able to generate as much content that > may, on a surface reading, seem valid whilst in reality being quite > the opposite. >=20 > * Equally, LLM's can introduce very subtle mistakes that humans find > difficult to pick up upon - humans implicitly assume that the classes > of errors they will encounter are the kinds other humans would make - > AI defeats that instinct. Do you have any examples of this? I've found the opposite to be true: AI is capable of really big stupid mistakes when it hasn't seen enough of the pattern, but I can't recall seeing it make something you'd classify as a subtle mistake (I assume it could copy subtle mistakes from wrong training data, so I'm not saying it can't, just that I haven't seen any). I think the big mistakes could possibly be avoided by asking people who submit patches to also append the AI confidence score: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/document-intelligence/c= oncept/accuracy-confidence?view=3Ddoc-intel-4.0.0 So we know how much similar training the model has seen before coming to any conclusion about the value of the output. > * The kernel is uniquely sensitive to erroneous (especially subtly > erroneous) code - even small errors can be highly consequential. We > use a programming language that can almost be defined by its lack of > any kind =C2=A0 of safety, and in some subsystems patches are simply take= n > if no obvious problems exist, making us rather vulnerable to this. I think that's really overlooking the fact that if properly trained (a somewhat big *if* depending on the model) AI should be very good at writing safe code in unsafe languages. However it takes C specific training to do this, so any LLM that's absorbed a load of rust, python and javascript from the internet will be correspondingly bad at writing safe C code. Hence the origin of the LLM and its training corpus would be a key factor in deciding to trust it. > * On the other hand, there are use cases which are useful - test > data/code generation, summarisation, smart auto-complete - so it'd > perhaps be foolish to entirely dismiss AI. Patch backporting is another such nice use. > A very important non-technical point we must consider is that, the > second we even appear to be open to AI submission of _any_ kind, the > press will inevitably report on it gleefully, likely with > oversimplified headlines like 'Linux accepts AI patches'. Oh, I think simply accepting AI patches is old news: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/satya-nadella-says-as-much-as-30percent-of-= microsoft-code-is-written-by-ai.html > The moment that happens, we are likely to see a significant uptick in > AI submissions whether we like it or not. >=20 > I propose that we establish the broad rules as they pertain to the > kernel, and would like to bring the discussion to the Maintainer's > Summit so we can determine what those should be. >=20 > It's important to get a sense of how maintainers feel about this - > whether what is proposed is opt-in or opt-out - and how we actually > implement this. >=20 > There has been discussion on-list about this (see [0]), with many > suggestions made including a 'traffic light' system per-subsystem, > however many open questions remain - the devil is in the details. >=20 > [0]: > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250727195802.2222764-1-sashal@kernel.or > g/ We're already getting AI generated bug reports from what I can tell.=20 It would be really helpful to see the AI confidence score for them as well. Regards, James