Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Other LLM-related topics - tags, newcomers, etc

On 26/07/17 10:49AM, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> Hi Liam,
> 
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 04:23:19PM -0400, Liam R. Howlett wrote:
> > On 26/07/16 12:36PM, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > > Sasha Levin writes:
> > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 09:09:27AM -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > > >>The use of LLMs in the development process appears to be a clear theme for
> > > >>the upcoming summit.  On top of what others have already suggested, I think
> > > >>we may want to consider these questions:
> > > >>
> > > >>- Do we want to continue naming specific LLMs in the Assisted-by tags, or
> > > >>  put something more generic?  I *think* that this thread:
> > > >>
> > > >>    https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/
> > > >>
> > > >>  reached a consensus that "Assisted-by: LLM" was better than what we
> > > >>  require now, but it might be good to ratify that in this setting.
> > > >
> > > > So originally I've added the full name of the tool and LLM because there was
> > > > interest in a later audit of the tools to determine how useful (or useless)
> > > > some of the tools are.
> > > >
> > > > If those folks aren't interested in doing so anymore, then sure - we can drop
> > > > it.
> > > >
> > > > But... I find it difficult to see the point of having the tag if we do that.
> > > 
> > > Folks like Greg have, in the recent past, said that it is useful even
> > > without specific product-name information:
> > > 
> > >   https://lore.kernel.org/all/2026070227-payroll-eradicate-8f66@gregkh/
> > 
> > There are a few classes of LLM users, but as more and more people are
> > using LLM, the usefulness of this tag is converging on zero.  We seem to
> > have three classes of LLM users.
> > 
> > We have people leaning hard on LLMs to push more code, but are known
> > developers.  The uses of an LLM can be replaced by using an RFC tag for
> > things that _really_ should be looked at by others prior to acceptance.
> > That is, if they aren't using RFC already.
> > 
> > We have people using LLMs for writing tests or reviewing code.  A tag
> > here is not useful as it seems a false sense of security for reviewers
> > and they may skip it. The LLMs are finding off-by-ones, but the larger
> > ideas are usually sound and the test cases are actually not all bad.
> 
> A clarification here: multiple people have expressed that they find the
> tag useful to guide their reviews, not because it tells them they can be
> less cautious, but because they want to be more cautious, or keep an eye
> open for different patterns of issues.
> 
> There's also been a proposal to replace the model/agent name in the tag
> with information about how LLMs were used. Among the people who find the
> tag useful, there seems to be a consensus that type of usage is the
> important information.

This would go a long way to make the tag more useful.  The way AI was
used is more interesting than the name and build of the agent used, imo.

Thanks,
Liam