In September, AI generated code has made up 17.25% of all Linux Kernel patches

In September, AI generated code has made up 17.25% of all Linux Kernel patches twitter.com

32 points•tosh•10 days ago•79 comments•

#patches #generated #ai #code #linux #kernel #september #ai generated

79 comments

I really don't know what to feel about AI generated code. It's clear that it improves velocity dramatically in code output. It has some value to it. But what is the cost?

While I code without the help of AI, sometimes I feel like I am being left behind.

Ohh you wrote only 400 lines today? I shipped a whole app while being in the gym... hits hard.

dev_hugepages10 days ago

If that makes you feel better, the guy who vibecoded an app in one sitting will probably have 0 clue on how the code works, the app itself will look like the average claude eyesore and the docs will be unreadable by humans without stimulants

AyanamiKaine10 days ago

Sadly, not. I trying to work with doctor's offices to improve their productivity with IT support and better structure for workers to work with patients.

You don't want to know how often I heard: "But I saw on Instagram, with AI it can be done cheaper and faster".

The people that would pay me don't care for good docs, eyesore, or if the programmer actually knows how the app works. They care for how fast are you done? And how much does it cost?

sysguest10 days ago

well even if the results are crap, it still has big economic influence:

"since I can use AI to create this app this much, I'll pay you less"

"although current AI made this crap, it'll outpace you eventually, so I'll pay you less"

nhinck210 days ago

All you need to us actually look around, has software quality dramatically increased over the last year? Have useful features been coming out at an unprecedented rate?

Because after all this talk about being left behind and I see nothing to show for it.

ncphillips10 days ago

Within my own company, yes. We’ve shipped a lot more features this year with the same number of people. They’re also better features. We get from 0 to 90% in an hour and then still put a lot of effort into that last 10%. The projects have better test coverage, docs, logging, etc. then they did 2 years ago. Stretch goals are reached much more frequently. What used to be 3 week projects are closer to 3 days. Our commit history is cleaner, easier to understand, has has better commit messages because we have Claude rewrite the history before opening the PRs. Our product is faster, more stable, and has nicer UX.

But this is anecdotal. It’s a team of senior devs who already knew the codebase well. We have a ton of detailed guidelines that make sure it’s writing code we deem acceptable. We review each others code, and get LLMs to review, a LOT.

tygon9 days ago

People rarely see when something works well. They only see when it breaks. For example, security has been dramatically improved with the help of AI finding vulnerabilities, only being limited by staff actually making fixes (https://medium.com/@the_atomic_architect/ai-zero-day-vulnera...). Life is full of "silent heroes" doing things without notice. Rarely do we see giant leaps overnight. It is a slow, silent advancement invisible to most. We are also still in the "growing pains" of finding the best use cases for AI.

piva0010 days ago

AI-assisted coding helps me a lot to churn through boilerplate, straightforward implementations, test writing, exploration of unfamiliar codebases, and other ancillary tasks in coding. It does not replace tacit knowledge/domain knowledge required to design a good solution, no matter how much of the architecture is described as documentation it cannot predict the future to have judgement about a proposed design.

In general AI is an assistance, it doesn't replace the intellectual work that is needed for a good implementation.

In my opinion, approach it like you'd approach any other tool: there are good use-cases for it while being definitely not the right tool for other cases.

sheepscreek10 days ago

Please don’t do this if your livelihood depends on it. You’re just going to make your life more painful.

As a professional programmer, you’re selling a service. The people buying your service have fully bought into AIs and accepted their shortcomings. You can’t fight this.

You can still scratch your itch with hobby apps, or contributing to human-first projects like Zig.

sieve10 days ago

Code is merely the means to an end. It does not matter who writes it as long as it does what you want. Correctly.

Stands to reason though that someone who knows programming AND has domain knowledge can get LLMs to produce much better output compared to someone who does not.

I never used to have time to make all the stuff I needed or was interested in. With LLMs, I can.

This "shipped a whole app while being in the gym" does not work for me though. It takes me a couple of days to a week to produce solid, functional software (~10KLOC). Simple tools (3-400LOC)? Yeah, those you can produce in 30-60 minutes.

Ampersander10 days ago

The pressure to use LLMs is high in the companies that sell shovels in this gold rush. It would look bad if they did not use them. Linux developers work at those companies.

simianwords10 days ago

in your version of the conspiracy theory, the developers are pressured to use AI for their patches in Linux from the company. not that they want to use it because they want to? Like everyone else?

bgregs10 days ago

I work for a company that contributes significantly to the Linux kernel, along with many other ventures. I can tell you for a fact that we are _heavily_ pressured to use AI tools for everything we do during the day (including writing documents for management review).

Anecdotal, but the only people I've met who are truly excited about AI tooling were the lowest contributers prior to AI tooling becoming prevalent. The senior devs I interact with on a regular basis are largely negative on the trend, both for code quality issues and the burden it puts on them as reviewers. I can personally say that I am entirely burned out from reviewing the crappiest code I've ever seen, all day, every day, with no end in sight. When it takes less time to generate a revision than it does to review it, this is inevitable. Most people I work with have simply lowered their standards for code quality to meet management expectations for code velocity.

Ampersander10 days ago

I just wanted to bring up that it's AI companies (which all computer hardware companies are now) that develop the kernel. In that light 17.25% is actually a tiny share of commits to be written by the Machine God.

unified10110 days ago

Seems low. 80% people are manually typing in things? In my circle it's close to 0% code written manually.

Do linux devs live in a completely different microcosm?

beej719 days ago

Large legacy projects are where LLMs are the worst, historically. And I suspect the hard part of Linux isn't typing things, and that the rigorous spec required to get an LLM to generate the correct code is basically the code itself.

I'm reminded of some of the coding stories at NASA where there'd be a ton of discussion for just a few lines of code. And the space shuttle code was apparently some of the most defect-free coffee ever written.

sheepscreek10 days ago

My hypothesis:

Linux kernel is a huge project - with a lot of people volunteering. You’d be burning through a crazy amount of input tokens to gain enough context to get any work done. I doubt many volunteers pay for their own top-tier subscription plans that would be able to do so cost-effectively.

unified10110 days ago

My follow up would be - how many are unemployed vs employed. From what I do know, most linux devs also work someplace, so either directly or indirectly have the means for a 20-100 dollar subscription a month.

More than that, I've not seen people do agentic coding in one part of their work, and manual coding in another. Is there any first hand account of someone doing this? It kind of rewires your brain, and makes it hard to do both at the same time.

pjc5010 days ago

Embedded code and systems code tends to have a lot of extra constraints the model doesn't know about and aren't necessarily written down where it can see. This produces a higher rate of "superficially plausible but doesn't actually work" code.

(There are probably wider benchmarks, but this was a definite finding in our company wide evaluation of effectiveness. LLMs aren't great at RTL either)

realusername10 days ago

The Linux kernel is essentially the nightmare scenario for a LLM.

No tests, not much documentation to work with, a very high acceptability bar, multiple ways to do the smallest change and every single word on your commit messages is very important.

You can start with a LLM but there going to be some manual modifications you will have to make, even with the best model available

ur-whale10 days ago

> In September, AI generated code has made up 17.25% of all Linux Kernel patches

I'm curious ... how would they even know?

Alifatisk10 days ago

Just thinking loudly here, I guess Co-Author in commits is a hint. PRs where LLMs have been involved is probably another measurement. Github Copoilot has its own account too.

easton10 days ago

They require disclosure of what tool was used if submitting AI-helped code.

(Which probably means this is slightly underreported from people not disclosing.)

eyikhg10 days ago

Yeah, I wonder which part of this figure is people doing "let me ask the LLM to do X... aw shucks, that's not how you do X you dumb clanker, fine, I'll do it myself" and not deleting the metadata left by the LLM in the initial draft (a very common scenario in my personal experience). Or people using LLMs for "dumb" large scale changes instead of conjuring an ad-hoc grep+sed script.

rvz10 days ago

So the Linux kernel has now just become by definition "slop"? I mean, there is a definition here which says it is now "tainted". [0]

Does that mean we should stop using it?

[0] https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware

TiredOfLife10 days ago

Yes. Codeberg running on top of linux and git just shows that they are huge hypocrites.

VCFundedGenYer9 days ago

Codeberg existed before Linux became AI sloppified.

It's hard to turn a large ship around.

rvz9 days ago

I agree.

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