Linus Torvalds loses patience with AI-generated code fixes bloating the Linux kernel

Last week, Neowin reported that Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux, was getting a bit annoyed about developers using AI to find issues in the kernel and then not submitting a corresponding bug fix, essentially dumping extra work on a few people. This week, he is complaining again that many of the “fixes” being submitted are not really addressing regressions and do not need to be submitted this late in the kernel cycle.

Torvalds said that this release candidate is unsurprisingly bigger than RC5’s have historically been. However, he said he is “not entirely happy about it” because the bloat is being caused by “totally trivial stuff”. He said that he doesn’t think the churn is worth it at this point in the cycle and is now insisting that developers look more closely at their pull requests to see if they’re submitting a fix for a regression, or whether it shouldn’t just be included in the next cycle.

For those who are unaware, a Linux kernel cycle usually consists of seven release candidates, after which the new kernel is released ready for distribution maintainers to provide to their users. If things get delayed, we can see an eighth release candidate. This is why Torvalds is complaining about the size of RC5; at this stage he is expecting things to have quietened down, but that’s not happening thanks to the use of AI tools.

Going forward, the Linux founder says he will “start being a bit more hardnosed” about this unnecessary churn this late in the cycle. He said that at this point in the development, the objective is to look for regressions, not non-critical fixes to long-standing issues that should have been submitted earlier in the cycle.

In terms of the fixes this week, there are a bunch of file systems, graphics cards, memory management, networking, security and stability, and hardware. In the hardware fixes, there are bug fixes for the HP Pavilion Plus 14, ASUS Armoury, and the Lenovo Yoga 7 14AGP11.