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 8C374295529 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2025 18:39:23 +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=1754419163; cv=none; b=Wa4HRGmtmVISM+s5hG3i34xY7UnujI5Xuj/LsfUnh4VSH5CgI/QDfWnwn2KuxexkwDKRIh9lbwdaAaLGtLiMt5bAaiRMhdSYy80vxhrQL0G+mY1eS0XMCyEHMaJBjJURuhSmtJIR2ePtBEZJ3dW4lA2b2GumQQaG6Buv2wfk7ww= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1754419163; c=relaxed/simple; bh=DmesYVe8MUtPTzFAH7BJGYpC1OKVeuoVcZPBoumItHs=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=uQmda8pUz2uE3FfHP87nORiA1THgXU88UOk9ddPdNw2ic0CUmi24TZ4FIMh+o8m2L8bw5ZKZMGCC0hGJgBG2c2QR6ASYHD19FAFMnY8NO37f0T8eIU+tuJwMq0rKdihRtcA8gqNbzfOOe5nqorKUo96FHgSiM/qUmudYdKM6SsI= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=rqBs+Sm+; 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="rqBs+Sm+" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C9461C4CEF0; Tue, 5 Aug 2025 18:39:22 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1754419163; bh=DmesYVe8MUtPTzFAH7BJGYpC1OKVeuoVcZPBoumItHs=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=rqBs+Sm+FeFh8P+wKgWnWnn9bZt7fdMXcSbNqxeyggKtgksVTTxXOJt7IUTmPSebB s3oRQ8ENkErQHc6sdx5kL1OtlPIE6ByTGEnbmjNpWC3Y7iboOB1emo4EBU+6s/r4mU CPe79bDzgnq+3CqPy4W/geBLQGeyG+WOBaZDkTjTLiplthtp5S5myJ65zLvj2fH9K0 8PsssuXbkgcm/yj6gDP9dc9BA8dSpNECvoJ1m8CkZeZXMnooot2UDC++PjsFaG2syc oKLh++IDMw9DYHsTdLqU/w8eUfareUaZTdfgKvXy9PmaacV6AZaVxcfja5paKCw1fw cmNiM4lBOIRoA== Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2025 14:39:20 -0400 From: Sasha Levin To: Lorenzo Stoakes Cc: James Bottomley , 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 06:55:29PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote: >On Tue, Aug 05, 2025 at 12:43:38PM -0400, James Bottomley wrote: >> 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 > >I fundamentally disagree. > >The consequences of even extremely small mistakes can be very serious in C, >as the language does little to nothing for you. > >No matter how much data it absorbs it cannot span the entire space of all >possible programs or even anywhere close. Neither can a human :) I think that this is where we see things differently: I don't think that AI needs to be perfect, I just want it to be at the same lever (or better) than a human. Humans aren't great at writing C code. There's a reason we're looking at using Rust for the kernel, and there's a reason that LTS trees exist - they're living evidence of just how many mistakes humans make. Look at the contents of LTS trees or the CVEs that get assigned: most of them are fairly simple memory safety issues, off-by-one, use-after-free, etc... I don't think we should expect a bar for AI that is higher than the one we set for humans. -- Thanks, Sasha