Re: [PATCH] [v3] Documentation: Provide guidelines for tool-generated content

Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.ksummit,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kernel.vger.workflows
Message-ID <CAHk-=wg0sdh_OF8zgFD-f6o9yFRK=tDOXhB1JAxfs11W9bX--Q@mail.gmail.com>
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 at 13:20, Lorenzo Stoakes <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Thinking LLMs are 'just another tool' is to say effectively that the kernel
> is immune from this. Which seems to me a silly position.

No. Your position is the silly one.

There is *zero* point in talking about AI slop. That's just plain stupid.

Why? Because the AI slop people aren't going to document their patches
as such. That's such an obvious truism that I don't understand why
anybody even brings up AI slop.

So stop this idiocy.

The documentation is for good actors, and pretending anything else is
pointless posturing.

As I said in private elsewhere, I do *not* want any kernel development
documentation to be some AI statement. We have enough people on both
sides of the "sky is falling" and "it's going to revolutionize
software engineering", I don't want some kernel development docs to
take either stance.

It's why I strongly want this to be that "just a tool" statement.

And the AI slop issue is *NOT* going to be solved with documentation,
and anybody who thinks it is either just naive, or wants to "make a
statement".

Neither of which is a good reason for documentation.

             Linus
lmpx.com only provides a reader for public news (NNTP) servers. It is not affiliated with the servers or forums shown here and is not responsible for the content of articles, which is written by their respective authors.