From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2A9523E92A7 for ; Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:47:31 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1773146853; cv=none; b=skET/Y5trP1xvDwCZBayZZerpGS/DtVLEmxx+yyd0MBlx33IvscrFF1llf3x6j0VupMQA6/fDSuwulC/z5qCb0bf7L+CqcAkuOKrPyNvflTeu+d0jOkR9jJVBDkL7g+zwxvMOrYMfMtFarrShiJYOirNfOBkhobVjhmSWm0SkWc= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1773146853; c=relaxed/simple; bh=KaB/INDVQHj0tKjoO49F5y8CK/n+RWxjDE0qZdGs5nA=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=tJc3ALLAgXIUTtpNw1LasZdIv5rGzS8kY+FV0nCXxk7m3K4D020FOiBPKowp/N4oSSHVkQUhm2OyAm/M54bvo2/BNErGfGzBlh64wz0FbdxxSsU0/xgUgwL93K8ujUW6Y7/DvKnJid9y4HlBt/NzE8ryJWnUrGaBDEYW+/972NI= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b=TveyT3JX; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b="TveyT3JX" Received: from macsyma.thunk.org (pool-173-48-117-133.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.117.133]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 62AClLgY030654 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Tue, 10 Mar 2026 08:47:22 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1773146844; bh=IRwhL7MmpCj4Z4bM3AxcQwvWHECRSsSSUGjEQaq+0g0=; h=Date:From:Subject:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=TveyT3JXFkZDGk5myRTnwabW4vWWWQt9DvIE85tTIiiYRoKo27bKL+/3doYqZox6s QCU/71o+4Q04fIi+aKaEhOBiX5XBopWbb/cM+25GsF6U3K5rqG6ArsLnD0HafA84NO g0fCnOJd8967F2gT+bXH8h6DDz0QjqmGnmesoDVQ/us2PPK2KvDu8f5CsJmryGFtzb 8Wad0kJTpjsWjrAkh98ZmCNkmcznFz67SSV3ZPM2rLqy9wQV9Nq0sJKQN2ad6UfKh7 Aykx4FuIzLhttUuSotx5jC++StR6m3OQdjxojtbUlrTzv1lfFwR6mzbDkYPhu6svA+ WMMV1KTVEyjSg== Received: by macsyma.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 7AD855C4E3CF; Tue, 10 Mar 2026 08:47:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2026 08:47:21 -0400 From: "Theodore Tso" To: EJ Stinson Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" , Jonathan Corbet , Steven Rostedt , Christian Brauner , tech-board-discuss@lists.linux.dev, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, christianvanbrauner@gmail.com Subject: Re: LLM based rewrites Message-ID: <20260310124721.GB14867@macsyma-wired.lan> References: <20260307-clean-room-6118793eb175@brauner> <20260309095705.7a6b6177@gandalf.local.home> <20260309121629.21cabc25@gandalf.local.home> <871phtvu7r.fsf@trenco.lwn.net> <04B897EF-DEEC-42D0-8E00-888CEEA5318E@zytor.com> <20260310045210.GA14867@macsyma-wired.lan> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: tech-board-discuss@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: On Mon, Mar 09, 2026 at 10:15:28PM -0700, EJ Stinson wrote: > Imagine if a rouge AI got access to rewriting the kernel, or was exploited, > this would lead to near certain catastrophe. LLM’s should not rewrite the > code, as if somehow a AI were to achieve singularity or go rouge/be > attacked by an anarchistic/foreign actor, think about the amount of code it > could sneak in without human suspicion, or just lead to human ignorance. I > think for the time being until we know for certain, there should be no > reason to use LLM’s to help rewrite at scale any sort of code. Even if we > were able to prove it wasn’t stolen code; the time spent on proving such > fact, and ensuring the security, would already take way too long tomerit > this sort of use. I think you're misunderstanding the concern that was raised at FOSDEM; which is that it is now possible for companies to take code that might be licensed under a license such as the GPL, and ask AI to to do a "clean room rewrite" and make then that code could be used or relicensed under a more permissive license, such as Apache or BSD --- or the company might take that code and use it in a proprietary codebase. "It's the end of the world as we know it....." There are a couple of problems with their premise. The first is that they demonstrated this on some very simple bits of Javascript. It's not clear whether this would work at *all* on something more complicated, never mind something like the Linux kernel. The second is the legal issues, and there are multiple dimensions whether the resulting code really would be considered free and clear for relicensing. And the third is whether it would really result in more secure code (which was their premise for why some companies might do this, since the people giving the presentation at FOSDEM were security researchers). Given that AI generated code is generally *more* likely to have security vulnerabilities than human written code, this assumption seems dubious to me. Also if the security vulnerability is inherent in the software architecture, having the first LLM generate a spec might result in a *spec* which is buggy / vulnerable, and so when the second LLM translates that spec back into C code, not only might it introduce new security vulnerabiities, the original security vulnerability present in the source implementaiton might be preserved. The bottom line is that I rate the FOSDEM as being 10/10 when they talk about the history of copyright, 9/10 when they talked about the history of clean room reimplementation (which has been around since humans has been around), when they talk about what's possible in the present, I'd give them a 3/10, and when they talk about the future, I'd rate their talk at 5/10 --- since their whole point was to start a conversation, and they certainly did that. One thing we need to remember though is that we don't have the power to stop people from doing this. For that matter, it could be that there are sweatshops in some third world country where people have been reimplementing open source code into propretiary code, and that could have been happening for years or even decades --- if the resulting rewrite gets used in some propetiary code case, we'd never know about it. The only thing AI could potentially do is to democratize this, so that any random person with a few thousand dollars of AI LLM credits might be able to attempt this. And even if today the LLM's aren't really up to the task for non-trivial programs, that could change over time. If that happens though, it's not just Open Source that is going to be affected. There are lots of people predicting that people graduating with CS degrees are going to be left begging in the streets since whether we're talking about new proprietary code or new open source code, an AI bot, perhaps with some help with a senior developer to guide the LLM, will mean that we won't need all that many (or perhaps *any*) junior programmers. Is that hysteria and overblown hyperbole? Maybe. The other possibility is that this will be the beginning of something similar to what happened to the replacement of textile artisans that made cloth by hand in early 1800's, when mechanized power looms made their jobs.... obsolete. Look up "Luddite" in wikipedia for more details. What happened really *sucked* for the people who made cloth the old way, and but the result was the ability for people to buy shirts for something significantly less that the a year's worth of wages for the average laborer. Will AI do to Software Engineers with the early industrial revelotion in England did to people like Ned Ludd? Who knows? But if it happens, it isn't going to be just Open Source that will be affected. And in the meantime, people who design clothes and fabric patterns will have jobs, even today in the 21st century. Cheers, - Ted