Re: [MAINTAINERS / KERNEL SUMMIT] AI patch review tools

[Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2025 at 10:31:10AM -0700, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at 10:24 AM Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 09, 2025 at 02:19:58PM -0300, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo wrote:
> > > On Thu, Oct 09, 2025 at 12:31:48PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > > On 10/9/25 10:30 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > > > > One way I see this working is to attach it to patchwork. Sending a patch to
> > > > > the BPF mailing list has their patchwork trigger a bunch of tests and it
> > > > > will tell you if it passed or failed. I'm assuming if it failed, it doesn't
> > > > > add it to patchwork and the maintainers will ignore it.

> > > > > Attaching AI to patchwork could be useful as well. But this would run on
> > > > > some server that someone will have to pay for. But it will not be the
> > > > > submitter.

> > > > Just to clarify, that's what already happens with BPF today.

> > > > Ex: https://github.com/kernel-patches/bpf/pull/9962 are all from the
> > > > review prompts.

> > > This almost relieves me from the guilt not to have reviewed that series
> > > from Alan ;-\

> > But this goes back to "developers should run these tools before
> > submitting upstream", which would provide them with reviewing comments
> > that would improve the quality of their pull requests by using all the
> > money that is being dreamed into AI and would saved all of us from
> > looking at github, etc, before AI is satisfied with the quality of the
> > submitters work?

> > Its all about what should distract maintainers (humans?), no?
 
> Our next step is to send them as plain text emails, so that reviews

Great!

> will blend in into natural kernel development process:
> submitter send patches, AI and/or human replies, submitter replies
> and insists that their code is correct and AI/human is wrong,
> or admits the bug and fixes it in the next respin. And so on.

Right, the thing I see making lots of people not trying to see AI as a
helping hand is that they do some one-off attempt while crossing their
hands wishing not to get a good answer. When they get a good answer they
think they are "cheating".

This is a knee-jerk reaction, focus on how you can get rid of mundane
work.
 
> Chris did a tremendous job in reducing false positives.

I have not tested it, but people in my team have and gave me great
feedback, we're on it!

> These reviews were proven to be quite accurate and spotted
> bugs that maintainers didn't. In a few cases the maintainer
> found a bug and pointed it out, but AI explained the bug better.

I'm a believer, there is help to be obtained from all this, lets reap
it.

- Arnaldo