Linus Torvalds used Claude Code to build a Linux page cache fix that hit 23x read throughput, but kernel reviewers found a race before anything merged.
Or rather, LLMs helped create bad code, and so didn’t do a significant peice of work - or did it so poorly it was dangerous to rely on for general use in an Operating system:
Race conditions in programming occur when multiple processes or threads attempt to modify and access shared data simultaneously, leading to unpredictable and unintended outcomes. They can result in data corruption, program failures, and other unexpected behaviors if not properly managed with synchronization techniques.
The work isn’t done if it’s introducing risky/bad code (especially at the level of an operating system). That’s like saying “LLMs cure cancer by cutting patients into quarters, human reviewers stop it”
Then someone claiming “the real story here is that LLMs cured cancer”.
Was cancer actually cured? The article doesn’t say the problem was fixed by the LLM. It says humans did the work of finalizing parts of it which had to be restricted to an experimental branch, and only operates on 64-bit machines.
At the end the only thing that matters is if this approach saved money/time compated to the opposite. If Linus keeps employing it, it works for him. He definitely isn’t an AI apologist, I think, so it’s not like he profits from speaking positively or negatively about AI
Wouldn’t it be more like the LLM presented a plan which involved cutting people into quarters then a human rubber stamped it and the people were cut into quarters?
Or rather, LLMs helped create bad code, and so didn’t do a significant peice of work - or did it so poorly it was dangerous to rely on for general use in an Operating system:
The work isn’t done if it’s introducing risky/bad code (especially at the level of an operating system). That’s like saying “LLMs cure cancer by cutting patients into quarters, human reviewers stop it”
Then someone claiming “the real story here is that LLMs cured cancer”.
Was cancer actually cured? The article doesn’t say the problem was fixed by the LLM. It says humans did the work of finalizing parts of it which had to be restricted to an experimental branch, and only operates on 64-bit machines.
The same happens when humans write code. Reviewers hopefully find some of their mistakes, then they fix them
Tell me then, was the problem solved, the work done by the LLM?
Was it considered good enough for a mainbranch?
Or was it faulty/risky and require highly trained experts to catch? Then flagged, and only put into an experimental branch?
How many ex-Oracle memory experts do you think are available for this work, in which even Linus didn’t catch the race condition?
“Hey guys, nothing to see here if we have enough high level engineers fixing everything”.
At the end the only thing that matters is if this approach saved money/time compated to the opposite. If Linus keeps employing it, it works for him. He definitely isn’t an AI apologist, I think, so it’s not like he profits from speaking positively or negatively about AI
partially
Probably, if it took multiple experts to catch the bug.
As happens with human code all the time
No idea, at least one.
A competent person like Linus can manage and direct competent code generation, whether that code is generated by an AI or an intern.
Right the guy who failed to catchy the problem in the generated code, will be fine.
Wouldn’t it be more like the LLM presented a plan which involved cutting people into quarters then a human rubber stamped it and the people were cut into quarters?