Human written code these days feels equivalent to a unique and soulful artisan made item whereas AI code is like a soulless and defected factory made imitation. I’d much, much, much, rather support artisans over factory made slop and even before AI, artisan work has been well known to be significantly higher quality than factory made stuff. For something as foundational and important as a kernel, I really think AI has no place in it.
All I care about is whether it works and is secure. Bonus points for cheaper and faster development. If artisan code gets us there, sure. If AI code gets us there, great. I trust Linus to know what works and what doesn’t.
All it takes is one person using an LLM tainted with proprietary code which then just gives them that code line for line to undo decades of courtroom defense.
Not only that, but AI output can’t be licensed/copyrighted. The GPL license no longer covers the kernel in legal terms.
There seems to be legal discussions about that. It’s not quite as simple as you say:
However, there may be cases in which a different assessment is justified, namely when users use and operate the LLM as a tool that merely implements their personal creative intent. This could be compared somewhat more vividly to using a paintbrush. If the brush merely rolls over the paper, for example because it is dropped, no copyright-protected work is created, even if paint remains on the paper. However, if a painter deliberately swings the brush in a certain way, a protected painting can be created. If AI is used in a comparable way a copyright-protected work can indeed be created.
https://kpmg-law.de/en/ai-and-copyright-what-is-permitted-when-using-llms/
Yeah any decision would be on a case by case basis, which is normally something you’d want to avoid.
I’ve seen a couple of Linux devs talk about how they just give a prompt to claude and walk away leaving it alone to spit out the code, none of which can be licensed as GPL. But good luck working out what specific lines of what specific patches of theirs used an LLM vs. were re-written or such.
I’ve seen a couple of Linux devs talk about how they just give a prompt to claude and walk away leaving it alone to spit out the code
While I share Linus opinion on LLMs, I think doing this shit is extremely stupid and lazy.
Ist that a common thing that LLMs using proprietary code for coding tasks?
Because I don’t think so.
They use everything for everything, that’s the big issue. Also gpl code. Anything they can trawl through they use. And replicate, in part or in full.
They take code snippets and copy and paste them? Or do they create own code based on what they’ve learned by trawling?
LLMs don’t “create”. Under the hood, they’re tokenizing the queries, looking for “clouds” of tokens that are similar to the query, then returning a sequence of tokens (with some random noise thrown in) that match what their training data says the answer should be.
In short: all LLM code is an amalgamation of their training data by definition. If there’s nothing similar in there, it’s literally not possible for it to be part of any response.
You’re exactly right. I should have used „generate“ instead of „create“.The point is I don’t think LLMs normally use copyrighted code in a way that would hurt open source projects.
Under the hood, they’re tokenizing the queries, looking for “clouds” of tokens that are similar to the query, then returning a sequence of tokens (with some random noise thrown in) that match what their training data says the answer should be.
Lol, so how do humans code in comparison?
AI is a tool, just like other tools we use.
This argument has, to me, always reeked of naivety. Heroin is a tool, but it has clear ethical implications, and we make attempts as a society to manage those. So is nuclear, and a particularly relevant one, since many leading AI figures have officially and explicitly stated AI is as dangerous as nuclear weapons. There are countless other examples of “tools” that require moral judgement (all of them, really).
I think Linus is being naive, and given his position of power, irresponsible.
And no, AI isn’t perfect.
I could write an essay about how much of an understatement, to the point of being wrong, this is. Many, far more capable than me, already have.
This is NOT some kind of “social warrior” project, never has been, and never will be.
No, of course it’s not, but he seems to be treating it like ethics and context are for children.
It makes me worried for the Linux project. Not that he’s willing to use AI, but that this is how he sees it. This is a learning experience for me.
I’m reminded of this quote that, to be honest I don’t really understand, but feels relevant
Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind…The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.
– Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.
This is a nice one.
And I see it happening right in front of my eyes at work. ‘How it is used’ will defer by the individual and specially for new tools, there will always be a generation of suffering.
Project Management, Jira/scrum etc had one (I’d say, still ongoing for most workplaces, that haven’t figured out the correct match). This one will too; probably more of it.oh I thought this “one generation of suffering” only happens in me country! It happens in here for non technical stuff. When some new stuff gets widespread in me country for the first time, a lot of people misuse or abuse it. An example is telephone. Another is Internet itself. And lately, coffee has become widespread in here(Iran) and people don’t know when to have an espresso and how many espressos per day is fine. There was a guy “I take 5-6 espressos per day and I’m fine”.
In a similar way, many people spend too much time on social media rather than doing something productive.
There was a doctor who said to me, “computer games can be addictive”. This was after I told her I play games, so she was pretty much implying that I was getting addicted. This was when I hadn’t played for over a month due to lack of time from my 9 to 6:30 job.
The same doctor bragged about how she couldn’t go about her day without drinking coffee right after waking up.She said those 2 things within the same 5 minutes.
What’s the problem with addiction? An addiction is bad if it harms you. I am addicted to espresso, me family, me little cousins, me dear close friend, the spaghetti me mother makes and so on.
