From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) (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 60196328247 for ; Tue, 11 Nov 2025 13:09:24 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1762866566; cv=none; b=pL4p1c6fD6lGANymdb1uexUY52UbpHRFd79L04evcm6gEmBAlaoh2eZUCY6yWe6ZH9KM9+tV7yqFD/fvi8rG1mtZP4dwwmMxb6ogGYBsHoNKBykTqQQVAnY6A6y9WrhuE4nK3T/Q8mbFgYjaa+SR0s54grE113TYgu84E3IqJEI= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1762866566; c=relaxed/simple; bh=P8QSnF9cHhQkGs1VCcaMb6B4xrloT45QP+6e1bZT/v0=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=dI2rRqy6hwa4y2ExyDBvSCDUf5ZwdnBL6GT//zIE5L96kgRsVOU9hUcz02BwmAVI25o89DMUcYP57eJriHVXsm73c91UNoCcMSDdSI+AjvzviALU8EvzpRq4nV9VidAoPxY+K3oA5LN9xvcVIXdSJ1B+J0UA0tqBKIWyvcvOAn4= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b=R20VSPiA; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b="R20VSPiA" Received: from trampoline.thunk.org (pool-173-48-122-154.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.122.154]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 5ABD89u3016803 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:08:10 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1762866494; bh=jQdDg8n/Au5TS/d1fg4OZe2j+2EezOUxUqKVSpu6yGU=; h=Date:From:Subject:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=R20VSPiA7ksYyAalbxHzN76ne8XkfasqZtrg2KEBVCso6Kyw6mUxAxpyG4bKeez6D DTD3/48BIq3sMdWHnfQZa+JIY6CiHUwYGWImaacVNuD+YvfrXRXDzUi9kAHNZ6oLaG AQx95In+MWzIwHwL/asnj+in0G3XRRJvjRy7RguiDCcB8cNixaImz99NnWK+CCoe5y tvZTOOf+UuYoFYAzSwxpkBTB+O9UT8FYbggKRj0IH6Ujiwq2yBr29HinlUElfIUejn HJ4UO2lSLayz99mJ0niPjd48xpgSYikz4UySLeSK3j1FH6QkQHKqLST17BzhT3pd+I w5uM7jwCF0xRw== Received: by trampoline.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id A302C2E00D9; Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:08:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:08:09 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Lorenzo Stoakes Cc: Linus Torvalds , "H. Peter Anvin" , Mike Rapoport , Laurent Pinchart , Christian Brauner , Dave Hansen , Vlastimil Babka , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "workflows@vger.kernel.org" , "ksummit@lists.linux.dev" , Steven Rostedt , Dan Williams , Sasha Levin , Jonathan Corbet , Kees Cook , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Miguel Ojeda , Shuah Khan Subject: Re: [PATCH] [v2] Documentation: Provide guidelines for tool-generated content Message-ID: <20251111130809.GB3131573@mit.edu> References: <20251105231514.3167738-1-dave.hansen@linux.intel.com> <653b4187-ec4f-4f5d-ae76-d37f46070cb4@suse.cz> <20251110-weiht-etablieren-39e7b63ef76d@brauner> <20251110172507.GA21641@pendragon.ideasonboard.com> <8bc25747-fcf0-4e45-b10a-566c5cfe771a@lucifer.local> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: workflows@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8bc25747-fcf0-4e45-b10a-566c5cfe771a@lucifer.local> On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 09:35:18AM +0000, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote: > > Now 'any idiot' can fire off hundreds of patches that look at a glance as > if they might have some validiity. > > The asymmetry of this is VERY concerning. > > I also hate that we have to think about it, but the second the press put > out 'the kernel accepts AI patches now!' - and trust me THEY WILL - we are > likely to see an influx like this that maintainers will have to deal with. Yeah, that's an argument for not requiring any kind of AI tagging. One of my concerns is that there's no guarantee that people flooding the kernel with AI slop won't disclose that they used an LLM. > 1. Maintains MUST have the ability to JUST SAY NO, go away _en-masse_ to > regain symmetry on this. Maintainers do have this already. There are certain people who are known to be sending low priority patches, and people just quietly ignore those patches. The risk of AI slop is that this will just happen a *lot* more often, which means that patches from known high quality controllers will get far more attention than patches from newer contributors --- because we won't know whether it's a new contributor who is coming up to speed, or someone who is sending AI slop. So the more AI slop we get, the more this dynamic will accelerate, to the point where people who accuse us of having an old "boys/girls" club will become true, and people will accuse us of not being welcoming to new contributors. There *will* be a solution to the symmetry; so I wouldn't consider it "unworkable". It's just that we (and especially newcomers) might not like the solution that naturally comes out of it. As you put it, "throw out the baby with the bath water"; the system will survive, but it might suck to be the baby. > 2. Those who submit patches MUST UNDERSTAND EVERY PART OF IT. > > 'that which can be proposed without understanding can be dismissed without > understanding'. Yeah, it might be that all we can do is to say that people who use LLM's without understanding all parts of it, my result in their blackening their reputation, wiht the result that *all* their patches might get ignored. And we can warn that if a company has many of its employees sending lower quality contributions, maintainers might decide to address the denial of service attack by ignoring *all* patches from a particular company / domain. We've done this before, with the University of Minnesota, due to gross abuse leading to lack of trust of the institution. Hopefully things won't come to that, but maybe explicitly warning people that *is* a possibility might be useful as a deterrent factor. And I think it's important to say that it's low quality contributions from AI is no different from any other kind of low quality contributions. And just as judges in courts of law have sanctioned lawyers for submitting legal briefs that contained completely hallucinated court cases, there will be costs to sending cr*p no matter what the source. > I think as long as we UNDERLINE these points I think we're good. > > TL;DR: we won't take slop. Agreed, completely. - Ted