Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] The role of AI and LLMs in the kernel process

[James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>]

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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.

>   That trips up humans often enough and doesn't seem like it's
> playing to the strengths advertised for LLMs.

Humans don't look at the patch path (or use something broad like a
range scan).  The AI can be patient enough to actually go over it all.

> TBH I'm not thrilled about the general test code is trivial
> assumption either,

I don't think anyone who trains AI thinks testing is trivial.  It does
take special training for AI to be good at test writing.

>  unstable test code or test code that doesn't cover what people think
> it covers are both problems.

Test coverage and constructing tests for coverage is another place AI
can help.  Especially given coverage is a measurable quantity which
makes training easier.

>   The issues when things go wrong are less severe than the kernel
> itself but things still need to be maintained and we already have
> issues with people being dismissive of the selftests.

Well our selftests, having just spent ages figuring out how to run a
subset of the bpf tests, are very eccentric ... in that each test set
runs in a completely different way from any of the others and knowledge
from one selftest area doesn't apply to a different one.

Regards,

James


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