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Linux and Git inventor Linus Torvalds discussed AI in software development in an interview earlier this month, describing himself as "fairly positive" about vibe coding, but as a way into computing, not for production coding where it would likely be horrible to maintain.
Torvalds was interviewed by Dirk Hohndel, head of open source at Verizon, at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in Seoul, South Korea, earlier this month.
Torvalds is technical lead and maintainer of the Linux kernel, but said that "for the last almost 20 years, I've not been a programmer." As for Git, which he invented, "I really just look at it from the side."
Asked about the process of Linux kernel development, Torvalds said his role has changed. "I used to say that my job is often to say no," he said, turning down new ideas that would be hard to maintain, but now he sometimes has to say yes to new things against opposition from longstanding maintainers who "kind of get stuck in a rut." He had in mind the contentious matter of Rust in the kernel, though he said that there are disagreements in other areas too. "Rust is actually becoming a real part of the kernel instead of being this experimental thing," he said, adding that it has taken longer than expected.
Despite the adventure of Rust, Torvalds said: "I like boring... boring to me is no super exciting new features that will break machines for millions of people around the world."
Is he troubled that with the AI boom, Nvidia's proprietary GPU microkernel and CUDA language is driving the hardware, rather than open source Linux?
"That's really no different from user space," said Torvalds, adding that "one of the nice parts of AI is it made Nvidia be a good player in the Linux kernel space, famously not true 20 years ago."
Torvalds said that the big issue with AI was that crawlers have been "very disruptive to a lot of our infrastructure" because they gather data from kernel.org source code. He said that the kernel maintainers do suffer "bugs and security notices that are... made up by people who misuse AI," but that it is not as big a problem as it is for other projects such as curl.
Torvalds is not using or even playing with AI-assisted coding, though he said: "I'm sure people are looking at it even for the kernel codebase."
Regarding vibe coding, Torvalds described himself as "fairly positive" – but not for kernel development. Computers have become more complicated than when he learned to code and was "typing in programs from computer magazines." Vibe coding, he said, is a great way for people to "get computers to do something that maybe they couldn't do otherwise."
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This is despite the fact that vibe coding "may be a horrible, horrible idea from a maintenance standpoint."
With developers getting laid off because of AI, Hohndel asked what the impact will be on software development as a career.
"It's a complicated question," said Torvalds, and one that can only be answered in a few years' time. His opinion is that "AI is just another tool, the same way compilers free people from writing assembly code by hand, and increase productivity enormously but didn't make programmers go away."
Torvalds is looking forward to a time when AI is "less hyped and more like the everyday reality that nobody talks constantly about."
Disagree? One can always send Torvalds an email. "I can almost guarantee you that I will read it, but I can also almost guarantee you that I will not answer it," he said. "It's very rare that I answer email."
The full interview has been posted on YouTube. ®
