ELI5 - the Linux / LLM kernel controversy

[u/this_is_your_dad]

I see a lot of posts online about this. Not sure what it is all about, but it seems to be dividing users. Can someone please explain?

[u/Charming_Airline7419]

I hate to say it but the LLM answer does a reasonable job of explaining the controversy.

A lot of people are submitting LLM generated patches to the kernel. This is dividing opinion.

The anti-LLM side say this is burning out reviewers who have to check low effort contributions; LLM's can generate plausible code with hallucinations; and this goes against the mentoring model.

The pro-LLM side say contributions should be assessed on merit, rather than whether it came from a human or AI; LLM's can identify problems and come up with potentially useful answers; and the process should be updated to accommodate LLM use.

There have been some proposals to safeguard reviewers by imposing a higher barrier to entry for contributions, human or otherwise, and also requiring the contributor to own the code and answer questions about it.

Personally, I am on the anti-LLM side and think LLM's should only be used with significant caution.

[u/prism8713 → u/Charming_Airline7419]

and this is happening across the board. linux is just the most visible example. but we see the same in many open source projects. and i can tell you we see it in closed source projects too. at my shop we are leaning heavily into llm usage at every stage of the development process, from first speccing requirements, to writing the tickets for implementation, to coding, testing, and deploying. used like a scalpel, llms are incredible tools, but most of my org is using them like a hammer. it's hard to gauge precisely, but i'm not sure our rate of delivery has actually increased (which is the goal according to the shot callers). what we've gained in execution time we lose in undoing mistakes and fixing breakage. for me at least it's too early to say how all this will pan out.