There appears to be a few bad actors in the Lemmy community spreading ragebait for personal gain

In fact, the same mechanisms added at the beginning to catch bad human written code are the exact same that catch bad AI code

  1. No, the Linux kernel DOES NOT use AI to automatically approve code for inclusion. As far as I can tell, there are no plans to do so
  2. The Kernel actually has a huge number of maintainers. As part of the process, all patches are reviewed by a human who provide feedback as part of the process, and patches get bounced back and forth multiple time.
  3. Patches don't just magically go straight to master. The maintainers generally have their own branches where it goes to, then it goes to staging trees like Linux-Next. It goes through many eyes, and many tests by the end. The idea that AI code is overrunning the kernel is rediculous
  4. Maintainers also check that the code meets coding guidelines and is written properly, and solves the problem they are trying to solve. Yes, they also ensure the code isn't slop
  5. LLM's though might be used to identify obvious problems with the code (which they are VERY good at), or even identify code that doesn't follow coding guidelines.
  6. The only thing that matters is the human who submitted the code, as they should be checking the code submitted anyway (including LLM generated code)

Writing bad code isn't something new, and isn't unique to LLM's. Coders (and it seems some "journalists") have been writing slop since computers were invented.

The process hasn't gotten less stringent (probably even MORE stringent as there is an additional set of robotic eyes that can also check), and the same mechanisms that were put in place to catch badly written code 10 years ago, are still there now.. With no changes.

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[–] 16 points 55 minutes ago (3 children)

I agree with you that the Kernel isn't doing slop. But there are a few points I want to address, maybe even disagree. First let me say that people have different definition of what slop means. That is why we don't always agree on statements involving slop.

he Kernel actually has a huge number of maintainers.

True, but its still not enough to handle all slop. One problem is, its not always apparent at first glance. And more code is generated than ever before, surpassing the capabilities, time and nerves of all maintainers. That means they start using Ai to combat the amount. And that's an issue on itself.

Writing bad code isn’t something new, and isn’t unique to LLM’s. Coders (and it seems some “journalists”) have been writing slop since computers were invented.

This might be true, but that is not a reason to accept or normalize slop. It does not matter how much slop was before, we always try to minimize it. The difference to before is, that nowadays its easier and faster to write (or generate) slop in mass that looks legit. Finding out its bad code or wrong can suck up huge amount of time of maintainers, which would have worked on something more productive instead.

The only thing that matters is the human who submitted the code

For you maybe, but there are issues using Ai regardless of how the code looks. And I don't even talk about the amount of code it can generate and outpace every maintainer capacity. I mean stuff like how the LLM was trained on in example, and if the licensing will become an issue one day.

While the Linux Kernel operates very securely and in a controlled manner, that we cannot call it slop (yet). But there are inherent problems using Ai that are unsolved.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 16 minutes ago (1 child)

    True, but its still not enough to handle all slop. The number of maintainers have also grown though dramatically.. Also, don't forget that LLM's can also be used to identify bugs in patches more quickly too.. So, more are getting submitted, but, lots of bad patches are being rejected faster too, with less effort (that required human intervention in the past).

    This might be true, but that is not a reason to accept or normalize slop. Define Slop..

    The difference to before is, that nowadays its easier and faster to write (or generate) slop in mass that looks legit. Finding out its bad code or wrong can suck up huge amount of time of maintainers, which would have worked on something more productive instead. We've all spent hours doing that though on our own code. Again, the buck stops with maintainers. One thing that Maintainers are going to do though, is get them to prove the code first and test the code in other trees first, before even trying to push to main

    There's always been code that has been bad, like Linus never liked the Con Kalivas performance patches, or Reiser4.

    It is also finding a lot of security issues and bugs faster too though

    I've actually written optimisations for code that I thought would be faster, and turned out to be a waste of time in production

    For you maybe, but there are issues using Ai regardless of how the code looks. Both sets of code need the same level of examination by humans anyway. In fact, in some cases, the AI code I've seen has been better than the code i wrote

    I mean stuff like how the LLM was trained on in example, and if the licensing will become an issue one day. That is true, and I agree with that. That's the one point that does stand out, but doesn't have anything to do with the claim by certain people in the community about the Linux Kernel being overrun with bad code.

    What I would like to see is a LLM that's developed exclusively using Open source compatibility licences with FULL traceability to sources uses, and a way to specify licencing allowed (or something similar).

    There is one issue with AI that you didn't mention however. The biggest problem with AI is that it adversely benefits closed source companies via Open source code. Because closed source code isn't easily accessed by the AI for training, but Open source is. The other issue is that hackers won't avoid LLM's based on the ethical issues, so, unfortunately, it forces developers to use them to keep up with the cat and mouse game.

    As a developer, am I happy about AI? For code review yes, but, it makes my job suck and not fun. And no, I'm not happy about the ethics.. There are a lot of things that sh** me, like AI companies SHOULD be forced to pay royalties to everyone they stole info from.

    However, what sucks, is that we can't pretend it's not a thing, and if Linux wants to remain competitive, it does need to use it.

    The best thing we can do though, is petition to tax AI companies and pay producers of the information. That would make AI unprofitable immediately and kill the industry

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  • [+] 3 points 27 minutes ago*
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  • [–] 2 points 16 minutes ago (1 child)

    Yeah but what if you care about AI ethics?

    Slop is multifaceted

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 minutes ago

    The ethics sucks, but that's an entirely different conversation. AI companies should be taxed and forced to pay royalties to creators imho (and yes, that would instantly kill the industry).. And, it should be Opt in specifically.

    But, that's not what people are arguing about when calling the kernel "AI Slop". The bad information I've seen is that standards have dropped and even claims that kernel patches aren't being reviewed properly. Some are even suggesting that the only review that happens is AI.

    Bad AI patches are no different to Bad human patches.. And the process has always been to identify bad patches specifically. The process doesn't need to change

    If anything, the standards have actually been raised because initial code reviews with AI are possibly better at identifying code that doesn't follow coding standards, identifying common bugs (or similar patch attempts that were tried in the past but don't work), or obvious bugs

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