AI in Linux

The role of AI tools (LLMs, mainly) in Linux is under discussion, or it was, until Linus Torvalds “put his foot down” in support of the use of AI in Linux kernel development.I can identify two major ways in which AI is used for Linux kernel development: authoring code and reviewing code. There are, at the time of writing, just over 1,200 kernel commits with an “Assisted-by” tag, from September 2025 to the present, most of which indicate patches which were written or assisted by LLM tools.The second important use of AI for Linux comes with a new code review tool called Sashiko, which generates code reviews for patches considered for various subsystems. Sashiko ignited the current debate on AI in Linux because it pushes the envelope on AI in Linux: people who oppose or do not want to use AI could previously just refrain from using it to write their patches, but now there is a growing expectation that anyone who wants to contribute to Linux will have to interact with Sashiko or other AI…