From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (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 676601F8EEC for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2025 17:43:03 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1754415783; cv=none; b=u71U5bV4+i0+HH95NpTOM7Bil9X6dUo6nxlqER2VcqUGt/jhH4PxblcWwwquJkUFsD9mXqEZBD5VVoW8rSsvp3na0m4mnSrQE2WZJWSO+pQlRcKiM7pUmY1i3TIwxe+bRniJnRlKKBCmos3hGaM6jUtOGI0wO3+P7ydl9A/iZ+M= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1754415783; c=relaxed/simple; bh=RNyF3c1cHOcdXzrTgmjBjPhzlReDWmRjmVh+QqYDyCk=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=qh5IRmcUzSq//YpmytsV2DXdAr5Q8iRy9unsNidBNTugMiVeYzMv7uBJjlqpmbvfNQhvqaqQiucGOTtx0Bg9i8FlcRTURo/ktmd79TYXHwDGjluVxx4BrGBZSM/aEgAJSLruJxRd5AWrk++mUa+gbJuc4JWmwoBp/tny2/WEHnY= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=IZBV6Dwn; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="IZBV6Dwn" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C8744C4CEF0; Tue, 5 Aug 2025 17:43:02 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1754415783; bh=RNyF3c1cHOcdXzrTgmjBjPhzlReDWmRjmVh+QqYDyCk=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=IZBV6Dwnamj8SDeHuLMmPsFnOi7Gk9Au8n0KsZ0bEhRw7rEiSP41zLTxokZV7/eq4 OWD0hl19pIvXBJHMa7VKxliiLMmLlMUOy87SYUgPXMnOYyuWrfgArfIngih77NP9/Z QACMMFO/OjN6V1h3F/cHWvipR6F3zDstb8NoBXpH6tMqXOKVKeeyeiBhuhGmNW8mgb pJpDlfmrijiVo3pfuFbUbScmJP92O6ok/wxacZUKLgB6t6KdzgCwT7yUeWeFBO7prg mb0B0tfmsy/wHp4wYxmF4+95DxbJ8TwKMEDIx1WFDA6mLSlOHrpgPKXCjWq5Muo23j wPbqpPiPK9ZSQ== Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2025 13:43:00 -0400 From: Sasha Levin To: James Bottomley Cc: Mark Brown , Lorenzo Stoakes , ksummit@lists.linux.dev Subject: Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] The role of AI and LLMs in the kernel process Message-ID: References: <56e85d392471beea3322d19bde368920ba6323b6.camel@HansenPartnership.com> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: On Tue, Aug 05, 2025 at 01:23:18PM -0400, James Bottomley wrote: >On Tue, 2025-08-05 at 18:11 +0100, Mark Brown wrote: >> On Tue, Aug 05, 2025 at 12:43:38PM -0400, James Bottomley wrote: >> > On Tue, 2025-08-05 at 17:03 +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote: >> >> > > * 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. >> >> Patch backporting sounds pretty scary to me, it's the sort of thing >> where extra context that needs to be accounted for is very likely to >> come up (eg, assumptions you can make about existing state or >> santisation). > >If you think about it, the git history contains the exact patch path >between where the patch was applied and where you want to apply it. >That's a finite data set which LLMs can be trained to work nicely with. Most of the patches that fail to backport and get a "FAILED:" mail as a result are really just either a trivial context conflict ar a missing dependency. Resolving those is within the realm of a "junior engineer" which I suspect AI would tackle fairly well. The other ~10-20% are indeed something more complex due to things like a major rewrite/refactor/etc of a subsystem, where I wouldn't trust the current state of the art AI to tackle. But mayble a few years from now? -- Thanks, Sasha