At the Linux Foundation’s Open Source Summit, the Linux creator argued that AI-written code claims are misleading — and warned that a wave of low-quality, AI-generated bug reports is quietly burning out the maintainers who keep open source running.
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Speaking on stage, Torvalds said the framing misses an obvious historical parallel. Compilers have translated essentially all shipped source code into machine code for decades, he noted, yet no engineer describes their software as “compiler-written.” AI, in his view, belongs in the same category — a powerful productivity layer sitting on top of human design and understanding, not a replacement for it.
Personally, I think even if AI tools can possibly used meaningfully and productively by experienced Linux kernel developers - people which have decades of experience with scrutinizing complex code that other programmers wrote -
… it will likely be an utter disaster in hands of average companies which are already ridden by technical debt, have no specs, no testing, no designed architecture, and will try to use AI to simply cut more corners and produce a higher volume of far worse code with cheaper hires. This will not end well for them.
(There is the argument that AI already “produces code that is better than typical code from the average mid/junior developer”. I do not think this holds water, because it can’t produce good code alone - this returns to the core of Torvalds argument.)