Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add agent coding assistant configuration to Linux kernel

Lorenzo Stoakes
2025-07-30T17:33:51Z

On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 01:20:54PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 18:10:51 +0100
> Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
>
>
> > > > I guess a statement in submitting-patches.rst would suffice, or should it
> > > > be a separate standalone document?
> > >
> > > If it's separate I think it needs to have a link from submitting-patches.rst
> > > to get people to read it.
> >
> > Absolutely agree.
>
> Sorry for cropping your response about submitting patches, but honestly, I
> think it may get more visibility there than in a separate doc. That's
> because submitting-patches is one of the most popular documents kernel devs
> reference to people submitting patches!

No worries! :)

Yeah to be clear - I think this should be a link, very heavily highlighted. Or
we could summarise (using AI? Kidding ;) what the document states there, with a
link for details.

>
> Of course, adding a link as suggested above may fix that too.
>
> >
> > >
> > > To summarise some other things that came up between the threads:
> > > a) I think there should be a standard syntax for stating it is
> > > AI written; I'd suggested using a new tag, but others were
> > > arguing on the side of reusing existing tags, which seems OK
> > > if it is done in a standard way and doesn't confuse existing tools.
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > >
> > > b) There's a whole spectrum of:
> > > i) AI wrote the whole patch based on a vague requirement
> > > ii) AI is in the editor and tab completes stuff
> > > iii) AI suggests fixes/changes
> > > which do you care about?
> >
> > I think any AI involvment that results in _changes to the code_ should
> > require the tag.
>
> I disagree with this. As I reply, I don't think if you have AI finishing
> your for loops and such requires disclosure. As I believe that may soon be
> the norm of most folks and then we may get AI storms.

This is actually a very good point.

This is going to be tricky, because hallucination is such a serious
concern, and even this kind of autocomplete would make me want to have a
closer look.

>
> And then, if you have people saying "I don't want any AI patches", does
> that mean those that use AI for templates and such will now be forbidden
> from submitting to those subsystems?

I think that's something we can potentially get more fine-grained on in
future.

>
> I would say if AI creates any algorithm for you then it must be disclosed.

I think what consitutes an 'algorithm' is very nebulous and you're likely
to get people messing around on the definition of this.

I think rather we could have an 'unless' list like:

Unless:

- It's whitespace only,
- You used autocomplete features for for loops etc.

AND you have checked that no hallucination has occurred.

The perennial problem with LLMs is that they can hallucinate in _very_
subtle ways that can be hard for humans to pick up on.

But we also have to be practical so I agree, we might end up with the tags
being noise if we don't make sensible exceptions (whether we like it or
not).

>
> >
> > >
> > > c) But then once you get stuff suggesting fixes/changes people were
> > > wondering if you should specify other non-AI tools as well.
> > > That might help reviewers who get bombed by a million patches
> > > from some conventional tool.
>
> I should add that non-AI tools should always come with a disclaimer that
> they were used. For the most part, most submissions that use non-AI tooling
> has done this. I just don't think we ever made any formal policy about it.

Yeah I've noticed this too, would be nice to standardise though.

Cheers, Lorenzo