I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area where I’m willing to absolutely put my foot down as the top-level maintainer. Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away. AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it’s clearly a useful one.
I think broadly speaking what he says is reasonable. If you don’t want to use AI, then don’t, but I think it can be used somewhat responsibly.
I have all sorts of issues with AI tooling:
the centralization of power
the load it adds on maintainers because of the amount of slop bad developers (and non-devs) produce with it
the environmental impacts of using larger models
the data centers causing health risks
the impact on the PC industry
the degeneration of skills and knowledge.
That said, it’s a tool, and can be used to amplify good work too.
And it’s the job of lawmakers to rein in the harmfulness of AI, not of open-source software developers.
And even if it isn’t open source, expecting companies to be the moral police without actual jurisdiction involved has already led to censorship, like Steam purging a bunch of games because of pressure from Visa and MasterCard. This isn’t something to be encouraged, even when it’s for things we don’t like, until it’s actually legally clear how AI is harmful and not “dubious”.
Not that this mail is about users anyway, but about contributors. I didn’t get from this if Linus wants to push AI use for Linux contributors or not, but I doubt he does. But blocking people from using it by their own decision would be a bad move, as long as the output is reviewed and works.
As a non-dev person who recently started using AI to get into doing some computer programming, I think the marketing by the CEOs has done a lot of harm. People who truly know what they’re doing and who are very careful thinkers could see all along that this technology is not at a point to where the following hype was true:
-it will not entirely replace human workers,
-it’s almost certainly not going to be better at what it’s doing than a true expert,
-and it remains to be seen whether or not it will ever be able to generate truly unique, bespoke, and fundamentally new solutions… you know, like what humans had to do for every single issue that came before…
And what it’s really good at from my perspective is allowing a non-expert person to generate productive materials in an area where they are not a master-level technician/developer/knowledge worker. It has really dissolved the barrier of entry and the value associated with routine technical skills, for better or worse.
The practical issues though involved with massive data centers, the price rises associated with computer parts, and all the other environmental garbage that’s happening is pretty discouraging though. This technology has legit potential for benefit, but the companies and CEOs have ultimately made it into a moral conundrum whether or not it should be put to use.
It’s really weird for Linus to reference “the open source thing” while encouraging people to use legally dubious closed-source software with legally dubious output
In the kernel community we do open source because it results in better technology, not because of religious reasons.
He doesn’t seem to subscribe to the idea that everything you use MUST be open source, as some more radical open source advocates do, but instead that more software SHOULD be open source.
I would definitely prefer if AI was open source and self-hosted (or at least E2EE if cloud hosted). Sometimes though the best tool for the job as things stand is closed source.
Aa for the legally dubious output, while AI can exactly replicate training data, it rarely does nowadays. It’s usually an amalgam of stuff.
A lot of my smaller issues with ai could be solved if it was used better like how I’d much rather see an ai that could be used to make music instead help you find similar songs or if ai giving you all the answers messes your ability to think why not put in the effort for a great search engine that doesn’t require you to already know what the perfect search terms are like a libertarian in a way more so than an oracle, reverse an ai art bot to find similar human made art from an ai image if you can’t describe it
I think broadly speaking what he says is reasonable. If you don’t want to use AI, then don’t, but I think it can be used somewhat responsibly.
I have all sorts of issues with AI tooling:
That said, it’s a tool, and can be used to amplify good work too.
And it’s the job of lawmakers to rein in the harmfulness of AI, not of open-source software developers.
And even if it isn’t open source, expecting companies to be the moral police without actual jurisdiction involved has already led to censorship, like Steam purging a bunch of games because of pressure from Visa and MasterCard. This isn’t something to be encouraged, even when it’s for things we don’t like, until it’s actually legally clear how AI is harmful and not “dubious”.
Not that this mail is about users anyway, but about contributors. I didn’t get from this if Linus wants to push AI use for Linux contributors or not, but I doubt he does. But blocking people from using it by their own decision would be a bad move, as long as the output is reviewed and works.
Sir this is Lemmy, I’m surprised you’re not downvoted to hell
As a non-dev person who recently started using AI to get into doing some computer programming, I think the marketing by the CEOs has done a lot of harm. People who truly know what they’re doing and who are very careful thinkers could see all along that this technology is not at a point to where the following hype was true:
-it will not entirely replace human workers,
-it’s almost certainly not going to be better at what it’s doing than a true expert,
-and it remains to be seen whether or not it will ever be able to generate truly unique, bespoke, and fundamentally new solutions… you know, like what humans had to do for every single issue that came before…
And what it’s really good at from my perspective is allowing a non-expert person to generate productive materials in an area where they are not a master-level technician/developer/knowledge worker. It has really dissolved the barrier of entry and the value associated with routine technical skills, for better or worse.
The practical issues though involved with massive data centers, the price rises associated with computer parts, and all the other environmental garbage that’s happening is pretty discouraging though. This technology has legit potential for benefit, but the companies and CEOs have ultimately made it into a moral conundrum whether or not it should be put to use.
Typical capitalism, imo …
It’s really weird for Linus to reference “the open source thing” while encouraging people to use legally dubious closed-source software with legally dubious output
This seems to be his view:
He doesn’t seem to subscribe to the idea that everything you use MUST be open source, as some more radical open source advocates do, but instead that more software SHOULD be open source.
I would definitely prefer if AI was open source and self-hosted (or at least E2EE if cloud hosted). Sometimes though the best tool for the job as things stand is closed source.
Aa for the legally dubious output, while AI can exactly replicate training data, it rarely does nowadays. It’s usually an amalgam of stuff.
I highly doubt E2EE cloud LLMs are even theoretically possible. Let alone the computational overheads for said theoretical zero knowledge computing.
A lot of my smaller issues with ai could be solved if it was used better like how I’d much rather see an ai that could be used to make music instead help you find similar songs or if ai giving you all the answers messes your ability to think why not put in the effort for a great search engine that doesn’t require you to already know what the perfect search terms are like a libertarian in a way more so than an oracle, reverse an ai art bot to find similar human made art from an ai image if you can’t describe it