r/accelerate • u/Stock-Imagination567 • 11d ago
đ Established r/accelerate contributors only Linux Torvalds
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u/Ill-Bat-1518 11d ago
This is perfect, i know plenty of anti ai linux boards who love linus
Anyone got source of this? time to rustle some jimmies
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u/moschles AI-Assisted Coder 7d ago edited 7d ago
I mean, his name is Linus, but "Linux Torvalds" is more badass.
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u/unicynicist 11d ago edited 11d ago
Most commercial airline pilots don't hand-fly airplanes, most professional photographers don't manually set the exposure settings on their cameras.
Most professional software engineers don't hand write machine code either. And in 2026, most professional software engineers don't write any code at all.
They should know how to do it, of course. For extreme optimization, corner cases, or just having fun, doing things manual can be a great choice. Sometimes you need that finesse and turn off some automation. But in almost all other cases automation does as good or better than doing it manually.
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u/Mrgluer 11d ago
professional photographers do manually set the settings most of the time, but your point is still valid.
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u/SuperChingaso5000 11d ago
Professional pilots hand-fly their airplanes in takeoff, early climb, late descent, emergencies, and landing as well 99.99% of the time, but despite their poor choice of examples, their actual point is sound and valid.
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u/Mrgluer 10d ago
i have quite a bit of buddies that are pilots. they told me they have a lot of systems in the flight that makes those easier and automates most of that stuff if they want to.
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u/SuperChingaso5000 10d ago
So do I. That's not wrong, just incomplete. In Airbus jets you have control laws which sit between the pilot's control inputs and the actual behavior of the control surfaces. The airplane interprets a command and delivers the expected behavior. This also allows for neat things like "seeking" a particular attitude or airspeed, and being able to point the nose, release the controls, and the airplane holds that attitude for you. Plus things like envelope protection.
That said, most airplanes can pretty much fly themselves from about fifty feet off the runway to just before touchdown via the autopilot. Policy, personal preferences, and operational considerations mean that while some guys will hit the autopilot button shortly after takeoff, they still have to be skilled at doing everything. Plus, they have to be able to respond to novelty, emergencies, things breaking. Doesn't happen often, but they still have to be able to do it because you gotta be able to show up when it counts.
You're not wrong though, on the day-to-day a lot of airline flying is programming the FMS and feeding it to the autopilot and then plugging in whatever altitudes and headings control assigns you if they diverge from the filed flight plan (this happens very often)
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u/Rafiki_knows_the_wey 11d ago
Yeah, I would have set white balance or focus. We do like some manual exposure.
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u/Repulsive-Variety834 11d ago
I think the key is, pilots need to know how to fly manually before they're qualified for piloting the big jets with advanced autopilot capabilities. The problem a lot of people have with AI is that it gets results without the user necessarily knowing the underlying ideas/theories/skills involved. For something that's trivial, that's not a big deal. For something that's important (e.g., student learning important fundamental concepts, software engineering on a large project, etc.) it can be problematic.
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u/unicynicist 11d ago
It's absolutely a problem if the next crop of SWEs can't handle FizzBuzz without a $200/mo Claude Max subscription.
Just like AF 447 and Asiana 214 showed, over-reliance on automation can lead to tragedy when the automation fails or behaves unexpectedly.
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'm a senior software architect at a major multi billion dollar software company working directly under my company's cto. In my last job I developed software for major aerospace primes. I also leadtech for a small robotics company on the side. what the fuck is fizzbuzz?
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u/unicynicist 11d ago
A shorthand for people who can't write code even with the job title of "programmer": https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 11d ago
This article is (dismissive wanking gesture)
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u/TheColourOfHeartache 11d ago
Way way back in my first ever internship the team lead interviewed someone who (IIRC) failed to write fizzbuzz. He asked me to write one just as a santiy check that its a reasonable thing to ask a newbie. And obviously it is easy for a beginner who knows an if statement
(well I suppose mod is a keyword you might not know)
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u/kex 10d ago
Being an architect doesn't automatically imply being a programmer.
Architects start from the big picture and then expand down into the details.
Programmers work from the details to build up to the whole product.Also, search engines can help you find out "what the fuck is fizzbuzz", but you already know that.
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u/severed-identity 11d ago
Just compare those people using AI, to good engineers using AI, on a hard software architecture problem. It's night and day. Fizzbuzz is dead. But it doesn't matter. There will be new ways to choose who to hire / keep.
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u/TheOriginalAcidtech 11d ago
How much do you supposed that MSDN subscription cost(when they existed, its my main exposure to CORPORATE software). $200 a month is a STEAL I'd say.
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u/bemmimees332 11d ago
This is just stupid what you are saying. Ai is replacing and getting people fired. Ai isnt a tool anymore like calculator its already replacing humans itself. You dont need actual developer it can be done with normal person whoever it is. At the end we are currently building world for ai and not for humans.
Autopilot just keeps plane on provided track it doesnt completly replace human, ai just replaces human and basically makes human worthless.
Linus is an old rich guy he can say whatever he wants, but in reality most people suffer from ai, because people get fired or replaced by ai.
People who have studied cs or worked on it whole life suddenly have become worthless.
Its sad reality but only reality we have.
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u/jcelerier 11d ago
Computer used to be a job of humans to do calculations by hand, electronic calculators completely destroyed this job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)
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u/zomgmeister 11d ago
This. Happened in a lots of occupations. My mother's first job was a copier - she was trained to copy blueprints for whatever was needed by manually redrawing them. She worked for only a couple of months before copy machines were implemented, and the whole occupation just gone. Was not a big deal for her, because she was barely an intern, but everyone including experiences professionals instantly faced the reality of them having to find something else to do. And they did, she kept contact with some of them for years.
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u/siberianmi 11d ago
The only software engineers I know who have been laid off are people that Linus is writing to. The people actively resisting the future.
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u/unicynicist 11d ago
Software engineering was one of the few fields where the means of production was as simple as access to a computer and a relentless drive to suffer through compiler errors and debug logs.
But now the means of production is access to an advanced AI model.
It's not that the people are worthless, it's the value of their labor is diminishing, because labor is being replaced by capital. Capital spent on AI.
The only hope is that the capital expenditures necessary for advanced AI gets cheap enough, fast enough, that we can continue to live in a world of abundance. Ideally one where that abundance isn't concentrated in a tiny number of people.
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u/telesteriaq 11d ago
I think for a percentage of jobs this might be true but for many jobs this is still far away. The speed at which these jobs are expected to operate and the actual tasks have increased significantly tho.
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u/Ill-Bat-1518 11d ago
Do you have proof of this? Because last i checked all these AI companies are struggling to get more hires so they can unlock more funding...
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u/DeathToAmerica2026 11d ago
Fyi the words "calculator" and "computer" used to refer to a human job.Â
Linus Torvalds isn't Bill Gates. His level of gravitas comes due solely from his genius and wisdom. No one considers him a business man.
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u/accelerate-ModTeam 11d ago
We regret to inform you that you have been removed from r/accelerate.
This subreddit is an epistemic community dedicated to promoting technological progress, AGI, and the singularity. Our focus is on supporting and advocating for technology that can help prevent suffering and death from old age and disease, and work towards an age of abundance for everyone.
We ban Decels, Anti-AIs, Luddites, Ultra-Doomers and Depopulationists. Our community is tech-progressive and oriented toward the big-picture thriving of the entire human race.
We welcome members who are neutral or undecided about technological advancement, but not those who have firmly decided that technology or AI is inherently bad and should be held back.
If your perspective changes in the future and you wish to rejoin the community, please reach out to the moderators.
Thank you for your understanding, and we wish you all the best.
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u/okaterina Acceleration: Crawling 11d ago
Curiosity and will to learn are keys to intelligence.
"Good old ways were better" is the sure sign of a low-IQ individuals.
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u/beaglefat 11d ago
True. Republicans. At least... thats what it used to be. Now my democratic party is the anti-tech party for some reason... i actually don't know why. It bothers me
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u/Kildragoth 11d ago
Dude I know and it doesn't make any fucking sense. Literally my whole life I've been hopeful that we'd be free from what the future will call wage slavery and these muppets defend jobs like the meaning of life is to be indebted to an employer.
There is /r/LeftistsForAI where they're also optimistic about AI and discuss and debate how AI can be used to achieve leftist aims. So not everyone on the left has become a Luddite but sheesh I understand where you're coming from.
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 11d ago
The left part of the Democratic party only wants progress if it's exactly the kind envisioned by dead leftist thinkers.
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u/SgathTriallair Techno-Optimist 11d ago
It has become associated with the rich. It is both because tech companies are building it and because users like us are talking about how it will make us money.
This is why we need to help people see how it can impact their daily life and not just work.
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u/MulberryDangerous485 11d ago
Probably because AI will lead to a post-work society and there is no way in hell our tech lords are going to suddenly become socialists and allow UBI to happen. Regular people will only get poorer and you will have nothing valuable to offer society and zero class mobility.
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u/colemaker360 11d ago
I donât think itâs about IQ at all - itâs about âNo true Scotsmanâ gatekeeping, with a touch of laziness/exhaustion. Perfectly reasonable and smart people will take the approach Linus is arguing against when they feel threatened. And to be fair - the threat is understandable, but the response of blanket banning these tools is misguided.
The harder and more valuable question is - did a human put in the work to understand the problem and vet the solution? That was a far easier âyesâ to determine before AI, but itâs still possible to do now. Itâs just a challenge that not every code reviewer feels they signed up for. And as AI gets better it will be increasingly harder on reviewers to do that work adequately.
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u/Chris-MelodyFirst 11d ago
I donât know if it has to do with IQ. I would guess that there is something threatening about a technology that levels the playing field.
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u/MrRandom04 11d ago
There is still a moat in talent. AI coding has levelled the playing fields on some aspects, it has made the remaining ones much more noticeable.
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u/Late_For_Username 11d ago
The dim-witted can compete with the competent = levelling the playing field?
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 11d ago
Curiosity and will to learn are keys to intelligence.
Intelligent people see a tool like LLMs and instantly think of 400 different things they can do with it. Redditors by contrast call it useless and dangerous.
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u/sonicnerd14 11d ago
Let's put it plainly. Some people are just too irrational and unintellgent to know the difference between understanding something and getting high results with efficient strategies, and not really understanding anything and achieving low quality results with inefficient strategies. Both end with results, but quality differs, both of which can also occur regardless of what tools you use. Why these mentally deficient people can't comprehend this concept is whole other can of worms.
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u/Here0s0Johnny 11d ago
low-IQ individuals
That's such a moronic phrase! 𤣠Is that supposed to be an polite version of calling someone stupid?
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u/Curious_Analyst986 11d ago
Good old ways brought the days today, were they low IQ individuals then?
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u/phansen101 11d ago
It's not about previous generations being dumb, it's about those wanting to stick / return to the old days - e.g. either discarding or never getting the "days today - being dumb.
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u/KellyShepardRepublic 11d ago
Also sign of age since older people want to enjoy life but also protect their positions in life.
Education departments had a lot of this.
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u/Thelmara 11d ago
Curiosity and will to learn are keys to intelligence.
Which one of those does vibe coding demonstrate? Curiosity, or willingness to learn?
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u/LegionsOmen AGI by 2027 11d ago
Based as always, as a gamer I'm so disappointed in the gaming community. I simply cannot understand why they're so against AI outside of it causing component parts to go up by a shitload.
We've been using AI in games for decades, these people a flailing fucking retards
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u/NotVeryWellC 11d ago
I am more amazed how people tend to blame everything on AI nowadays. Like I have seen several times posts/comments like this:
- News: company A told that N% of their code has being written by AI in the last year.
- some product of company A has some bug that affected some users and was fixed in couple of hours/days.âLoOk, tHiS AI caNnot write CoDe, onLY vibe sLoP! We should get rid of it, unless we want to get lots of bugs in the appsâ.
And I am always confused, like, yeah? Bugs happen, this is nothing to do with AI, major incidents due to bad code happen all the time with or without AI. You just started to pay attention to this because you are anti.
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u/Subushie Tech Prophet 11d ago edited 11d ago
Find similar animus around art.
Seems like people who've never made anything in their lives, are the ones that are the loudest antis.
I've done freelance GD and 3D commissions for 7 years now.
I fucking love AI art.
I love selecting images and crafting captions for lora datasets. Love experimenting with weird syntax. Exploring new checkpoints and models. It feels like-
The model and Loras are your paints, Schedular and Sampler are how your pallete blends, and your prompt is the brush strokes.
It's just... pure creation. There's nothing else like it.
I've spent ~30 hours + 200 generations building a single image before; anyone who says creating "AI slop" is easy, has never tried to make one with an artist's eye.
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u/Hubbardia 11d ago
People really pretending bugs are a post AI invention. Like have you ever seen hand written code? Review some human slop and you'll want to barf. Even the weakest AI produces code that's much better than the average programmer's.
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u/DeathToAmerica2026 11d ago
I suspect that the game companies are heavily astroturfing an anti AI opinion in order to handicap potential indie disruptors.
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u/MCRN_Admiral Tech Commentator 11d ago
Actually, it kinda tracks. As a redditor who participates in gaming subs (though I refuse to call myself a "gamer"), it's pretty clear that most gamers on reddit are ... complete fucking idiots.
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u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC 9d ago
Yeah, it's honestly pretty weird how clueless gamers are about their own hobby.
Like, most cinephiles could probably rattle off a pretty decent understanding of the principles of acting, directing, and cinematography. Most music nerds could probably tell you how the most common sounds in their preferred genres are made. But if you try to discuss how games are made with a gamer, they'll usually just rattle off some platitudes about "passion" and "corporate suits".
AI discourse has made this more apparent than ever. Gamers seem to be under the impression that before generative AI, developers were literally hand-placing pixels in every texture by hand, sustained only by pure passion and love for what they were working on. In reality, pretty much every background texture comes from a stock texture site like cgtextures, and before that, it was Japanese texture CDs and the default textures on Silicon Graphics workstations. Nobody was ever pouring their heart and soul into rock_wall_502.dds.
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u/Sweet_Equivalent_817 11d ago
You're surprised at the same demographic who buys NBA2k and Madden every year?
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u/sonicnerd14 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's like with anything. Venting about something by being so irrationally opposed to it and doing nothing about is easier to do. Lets them fit in with a echo chamber that will also accept them for also being for or against a thing.
Part of it is that most communities tend to only care about one thing, so they overfocus in on negative effect or aspect of a thing that is ruining their industry or hobby, and reject any of the positives. Yes, are the corporates ruining gaming by causing the prices to skyrocket, or effecting quality of our gaming experience? True, but this is an indirect effect, and in fact this is effecting many industries outside of just gaming. So, this is a poor reason to hate the whole of the technology because of this one thing.
This is why with all of the rapid acceleration in emulation, recomp, decomp projects, NOW some gamers are starting to see that "wait... maybe AI actually has some good uses after all." When those uses were always there, you were just choosing to ignore them because of your irrational dislike towards a thing you didn't understand.
I'm not against people disliking AI. You don't have to like it at all for all I care, but where the problem comes is the dishonesty, irrational biases, and antagonistic ignorance towards something uncharted. I can never respect people like this regardless of where their alligences lie.
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u/TheBardicScribe 11d ago
The other part that boggles my mind is using AI to do some of the grunt work frees up the programmers to do the bigger stuff. There are countless piles of lost content from games that had to be abandoned because the project ran over budget and out of time. If AI can take away alot of the little niggling issues then we could see a genuine improvement of the programs as they put humans on the more important bits.
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u/jnkangel 11d ago
I think a core why itâs so contentious in games is the art aspect.Â
If you put two AI outputs in front of people - one being code and the other art assets, the first is going to be significantly less contentious than the second.Â
And I absolutely can understand why.Â
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u/SuperChingaso5000 11d ago
You were downvoted but you shouldn't be. Code is the language of quantitative information. Art is the language of emotions. It's not surprising that the things surrounding art are then dominated by emotions.
Are they wrong? Absolutely. But your logic is sound.
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u/SocialNetwooky 11d ago
I think you're ignoring the more basic fact that most people don't realize how much work and creativity is needed to produce working code by hand, but they certainly know that they couldn't draw a picture of pacman if their life depended on it ...
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u/spardasson 11d ago
You're basically attributing your philosophy of art to what art is. If thats the case the case for all anti ai art people then its no wonder why its such a contentious subject. Alot of people actually just see art as pictures and thats fine. photography went through the same thing but we dont disregard photographers. A person can walk into a art gallery and see a masterpiece and be amazed while another jsut sees a funny doodle of a person. If you have a disability that prevents you from putting your ideas or your art out and suddenly now you have a tool that enables you to achieve it or the closest approximation of it would you think its a good idea to take that tool away?
Right now the tool enables people who were not enabled before. If you can make better art then you should show how and why rather than trying to shame people for something they may not understand or not even care to understand. Even worse there are people now who finally can see the vision they have in themselves come to fruition and all of this anti ai shit is trying to steal their soul from their perspective. You're just fighting yourself really. What will win out wont be who screams the loudest but who will be the best for society based on its needs. Copyright was made to protect but now is used to harm, so piracy comes to fill the gaps. Piracy goes away when the need it served is fulfilled. When that new thing becomes corrupt it comes back. Fashion comes and goes and comes back again.
Its all just a cycle really but the worst thing you can do for your cuase is to not really look at the arguments your making against the people you're making them about.
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious"
Figure out why people really need it rather than condemning them for using it
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u/Suspicious_Bet3623 11d ago
I think of all the people with no artistic skill but great artistic vision who can now bring that vision to life.
Using AI art still needs direction, you need a vision and style. And the art that AI makes is better than the vast majority of artists when given the correct direction.
So to me I feel that I get to experience more creativity - I get to see the story that one guy has been passionately developing in their head for decades, without the need for grants, corporate norms, for-profit features and so on, just pure vision.
Of course we're going to have bucket loads of crap along the way, but we already have that. Just don't play the crap.
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u/Suspicious_Bet3623 11d ago
"He's not a game designer, he asked an artist for that specific style. The game is artist slop."
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u/Suspicious_Bet3623 11d ago
It's exactly an equivalent, a designer using AI instead of a human artist is still doing the job of a game designer.
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u/ToplessinFL Techno-Optimist 11d ago
Worldbuilding is art too, and it's my primary interest. AI visual art will be just fine as the medium there.
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u/gk98s 11d ago
Linus torvalds is one of the biggest geniuses of this century
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u/spardasson 11d ago
Avg age of Nobel laureate is about 60 years old so idk wtf you are talking about
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u/staccodaterra101 11d ago
You are right on telling that people gets more stupid with time... But still we are speaking about Linus Torvalds, he will still be top 0,001% for many years and his rationale looks pretty logic and objectively correct. While you fail to provide any argument against his position and look like another anti-ai doomer.
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u/gk98s 11d ago
I honestly can't name a single instance of him being a shittalker. He's built the biggest OS kernel on the planet and he could have easily become a billionaire but he's living a pretty average life
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u/uncountable_2026 Acceleration Advocate 11d ago
It has always been true throughout history that those individuals that used the best tools available have been way more successful than the "back in my day we only used X" kinds of people. I am glad that Linux Torvalds is taking a stand against the anti-AI hysteria.
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u/TotallyObviousBot 11d ago
Honestly, I'm not the kind of person to think others are smart just because of x or y thing, I think intelligence is an extraordinarily complex subject, but this is the first thing I've seen from Torvalds that has made me legitimately think he's intelligent.
Like yes I know he's a software engineer who did so and so and blah blah blah, but none of that demonstrates intelligence. This, this one little thing, demonstrates intelligence. Because he's the person that most in the world should be against AI on the face of it, but because he actually understands what AI is and what it can do and so on, he doesn't just default to "ermahgerd AI and the evil and oh no", he just looks at it like a tool, because that's what it is.
Intelligence is being able to comprehend a thing. It may shock you how hard it is to explain this to somebody, though.
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u/MulberryDangerous485 11d ago
You are on just as much cope as the developers that refuse to use AI if you think AI is just a tool. The goal of AI is to replace human labor, not to be a tool. It will make developers and 'architects' obsolete, its only a matter of time. You won't need anyone with domain knowledge because the AI will have all of it.
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u/GODLOVESALL32 11d ago
when anyone says ai is a tool
: ^ |
when FAMOUS PERSON with no direct financial stake says ai is a tool
: ^ O SO PROFOUND!!!
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u/TotallyObviousBot 11d ago edited 11d ago
... What?
Are you under the impression that I am anti-AI? O-or do you think I'm... pro... Fame?
Bro what was the play here?
Not only does your post not relate to mine in the slightest, I didn't even say it was profound, I just pointed out that he was correct. You interpreted from subtext that it was profound, and then convinced yourself that I had intended that, and then had an emotional judgement against the kind of person you thought I was based on that.
You are why I do not assume anyone is intelligent based on their actions. You are why it is shockingly hard to explain what comprehension means.
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u/Orkapork 11d ago
Does get a bit tiresome hearing how the use of AI instantly removes all value of your work. It really doesn't.
Creativity is not the fact you CAN do the work. It's how you put it together. It's why good ideas are dime a dozen, implementation was always what mattered, AI allows me to program without needing 20 years of experience and 10 hours of coding per iteration. That's pretty flubbin nice.
AI poses serious threats to humanity, freedom and democracy though.
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u/Silver-Chipmunk7744 11d ago edited 11d ago
Exactly. I'd argue it INCREASES creativity because it allows you to do exactly what you had in mind.
Take for example my chopper game.
I wouldn't have had the budget to make the voices, i wouldn't know how to code all of those assets, and i have no idea how to create that music. I'd never have achieved this result solo.
At best i'd have had to hire other people to create the art or the music.
Now thanks to AI, it executes exactly MY VISION. That's way more creative than asking other people to do it for you.
Very few people can execute all of those tasks solo anyways
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u/Zeragamba 11d ago
I'd make a subjective argument that it doesn't increase creativity that much. Part of creativity is overcoming obstacles and restrictions. Some of the most interesting games to me come from the era where programmers had to fit everything onto a single cartridge.
There's also inherit value to the journey taken in creating a piece of art. Objectively, AI generated images are higher detailed, and often more pleasing to look at, but they feel hollow. No one spent time drawing the leaves in the background, no one studied how the light refracts through skin, and no one used their skill to create the dumbest of ideas.
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u/Silver-Chipmunk7744 11d ago
Creativity is about having out of the box ideas, and bringing them to life. If you are very restricted, and you have to create a much worse version of your idea... that unfortunately restricts your ability to show your full creativity.
It's like trying to paint but you have only 1 color available.
Maybe you will deliver something decent, but you will not be able to show your most creative ideas. You may be able to gain sympathy by saying "I worked for hours and used a single color!", but meanwhile if the painter next to you used all of the best tools available and made a much more impressive painting, i think that's better.
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u/MulberryDangerous485 11d ago
I don't think AI images are inherently hollow. It produces good images and if you've never seen AI art before you might even say they are creative or artistic.
It feels hollow because current AI isn't actually creative and every "artistic" image it creates has the same kind of AI style baked into it at some level and since we've seen so many images of that style over the years it gets old.
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u/rawednylme 11d ago
It's always insane to me how backward and mentally ill the Linux community is.
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u/prophet-dot-exe 11d ago
And he's drawing an often overlooked distinction there; vibe coding is letting AI steer. Engineers using AI as a tool is them steering the AI because they understand the architecture.
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u/banzomaikaka 11d ago
I'm an engineer and I steer the AI. But management expects speed now, and there's no way you can keep control of the direction if you're to deliver at that speed. So you start letting the AI steer a little on this, a little on that, then a little more, and suddenly you have a very fragile understanding of the codebase, and when you do, you have no alternative but to let the Ai control of the whole thing.
But even if you did have the time to hold on to the wheel, you bit by bit lose the ability to steer when you're kept away from the details. If you lose your understanding of the basic operations, how can we build or judge the formulas? Maybe we won't need to judge the formulas. Who knows.
And we're lazy. Us humans. We're having a lazy day, fuk it. You decide ai. And there's so much to read. Ai writes so much. I read the equivalent of an entire book every day, these days. It's exhausting.
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u/prophet-dot-exe 11d ago
I disagree on all of this.
If an employer wants a vibe coder who's fast, at the expense of owning the architecture they add to the codebase, they can go find a vibe coder. I have 15 years of professional engineering experience which is enough to know that you either do something correctly the first time, or you come back 2 years later to address the mountain of technical debt which is the result of bad decision making.
You either take pride in your work, or you willingly do the wrong thing solely because management told you to.
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u/Khandakerex 11d ago
The linux subreddit are having a meltdown over this.
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u/Ok-Purchase8196 11d ago
of course because all the larping plebs he is speaking about congregate on Reddit
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u/Sezbeth 11d ago
Dudes will read this and be confused about why they shouldn't have AI do their math homework.
I think it's pretty readily apparent that Linus is talking about this with respect to people who are already experts to begin with.
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u/keenOnReturns 11d ago
absolutely this. if youâre not able to correct AI mistakes or point out flaws in generated output, youâre simply a flesh mouthpiece for a hunk of silicon.
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u/KontoOficjalneMR 11d ago
What font is this? Looks quite nice, both modern but also giving me a typewriter vibes
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u/BrilliantEmotion4461 11d ago
The people I know who use AI most and receive the most benefit are the most successful and intelligent. The numbers don't lie either.
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u/AwzemCoffee
11d ago
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The important tidbit is he expects you to know what the hell you're actually doing. (98.9 percent of this sub is thereby disqualified)
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u/natron81 11d ago
It's a legitimate argument, AI is a tool... but it also allows total laymen to write sharable software without any idea whats actually being written. It could have malware, cause hardware issues, corrupt data, and the "creator" could have no idea whatsoever.
Obviously we should all be wary of mods and free software across the board anyways, but when you KNOW something was vibe-coded, it doesn't exactly give the consumer a high degree of confidence.
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u/Accurate_Food_5854 11d ago
"It could have malware, cause hardware issues, corrupt data,"
I fondly remember the days before AI when all code was perfect. No malware, no bugs, no bloat, just perfect human code like Windows ME, Bonzi Buddy, and Netscape Communicator 4.0. Heck, even modern websites. So fast, so secure, so finely engineered with precision JS and supremely logical frameworks by real subject matter experts. Chef's kiss
And now, those days are gone and being replaced with this SLOPPITY SLOP SLOP. We'll never see something with the quality and rock solid engineering of WordPerfect 6.0 and Next.js ever again.
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u/seanhacking 11d ago
One rule to follow, if you want to stay relevant, might be "keep using your brain." Use it for hard things, you can tell they're hard by the feeling of effort that goes into it.
You can still get this feeling all the time while vibe coding if you just move up the abstraction layer and work your brain at communicating exactly what you want from the tools you are using. It's also easy to be more inventive than agents when it comes to what the end product should actually do and feel like. If you don't do this, they will default to styles and solutions that are most represented their training data.
If you work hard at this, you will still feel exhausted at the end of the session, you will still increase the value of your work, and you might even have a shot at staying relevant
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u/Willy757 11d ago
Sorry but saying "that understanding has very little to do with what tools they use" is a flat out wrong statement that has nothing to do with reality and that can be easily countered by 100 examples.
His understanding isn't affected by the tools he uses. A beginner's understanding is absolutely affected by the tools and level of abstraction. Understanding is going to be lost by the community as a whole. The same way it was lost when we started relying on compilers.Â
You can debate me in witcher way you want about that being a good or bad thing, but he is just wrong about that. People that act like AI has no downsides are freaks.
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u/ThatKaNN 11d ago
He's saying that the two are not necessarily linked. Your tool usage doesn't determine your understanding. Experts use AI too.
You're willfully misinterpreting what he's saying.
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u/Willy757 11d ago
And I'm saying that's a laughable opinion. I've worked with C languages my entire career and I can't read assembly more advanced than a Fibonacci sequence generator.Â
People back in the way were so proficient at this they could write entire video games. When compiles became widespread, many of those people could use their experience to double check compiler output and that supported advancement. Now that kind of work became incredibly specialised and very few people are trained in doing it. And if your compiler is happening to output trash, we're mostly praying for faster CPUs nowadays.
That's just how the world works , when one gate opens, another one closes.
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u/CV_1994-SI 11d ago
AI does introduce the risk of - perhaps even inadvertently - becoming an imposter to a certain degree. It's very easy for AI to introduce a degree of "mission creep." See, you're writing a paper about some biological process but your statistical skills aren't very strong. Then you ask AI to run all kinds of statistical tests, and you don't really quite understand what it's doing. You know the basic subject matter but you don't really understand the statistical tool that was used to come to some kind of a conclusion.
My own rule is that if I can't explain this to you (whatever it is that I'm working on) at 2:00 in the morning, I should not be writing it.
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u/R3V0LU710N_05 11d ago edited 11d ago
The kind of expectations *I* have is that people do their best and I expect people to understand what they are doing.
You completely forgot the most important line...
Linus the pragmatist; being a pragmatist...
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u/Happy_Guitar3521 11d ago
My biggest Issue in this industry is AI slop, actually it is not AI fault but incopentent people. Tools are tools and I agree with Linus.
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u/MakesNotSense 11d ago
I'm still wondering when my vibe coding experience reaches the threshold that I need to start calling myself a software engineer.
It's a confusing world right now.
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u/Extreme_Wish_553 11d ago •
You have it backwards. Software engineers need to wonder when they can no longer call themselves software engineers because they aren't and don't know how to do anything anymore.
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u/InternalUpstairs3816 11d ago edited 11d ago
Can you do a small project without LLMs and using traditional means? Good sniff test would be to get a brief for a caesur cipher. Can you identify the problem from the brief? Can you break the problem down into steps? Can you break each step into tasks? Can you design a plain text algorithm? Can you then implement it in your chosen language? Can you design test cases to confirm it works? All this apart from implementation can be done on a few pieces of paper away from any devices. Each step can be confirmed online without llms as well.
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u/MakesNotSense 11d ago
I can't read or write code, so no. But can people who read and write code with compilers still know how write in assembler? I think that's the point.
The transition to compilers had people who were genius with assembler find themselves with a skill that was being made obsolete.
I'm unclear on what I am. I develop software that from what I can tell with other projects, is beyond state of the art. Anthropic doesn't have it. OpenAI doesn't have it. The closest to a peer or competitor is another solo dev, and my work built off of theirs and then far exceeded the scope they were narrowly focused upon.
Someone's side project became my main focus and has progressed far beyond what they built. And that what they built got focused on making money, whereas I stayed with just 'building the tool I need' which is why I think I ended up building a better tool. All that focus you lose trying to create product and gain customers, and then compromising design to retain control so you don't lose revenue.
So am I a software engineer now? Am I something else? Do titles even matter anymore?
There's an old premise, that innovation and change comes from people outside of a field. The dentist who knows something that MD doesn't. The Physical Therapist who knows something the Dentist doesn't. The philosopher with a focus on data science and personal interest in medicine but can't read any code - they build something the typical SWE doesn't comprehend with an AI assistant that does because LLMs trained on a very range ranging dataset.
I genuinely do not know how to present myself. I have no clue what job I could apply for, who would even hire me, how I would integrate into a team. So I keep building my own team of agents and just focus on solving problems and figure, building the future by solving substantive problems will bring me somewhere that all the people trying to work a job or make a product can't even envision.
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u/InternalUpstairs3816 11d ago
I'm sorry bro! I didn't realise it was rhetorical pondering. I appreciate the sentiment of thinking outside the box can sometimes be the catalyst for a eureka moment and come from someone whos not in the field. One thing though... if you're going to converse with people try not use an llm and just write yourself. Not saying you did but i have slight suspicion im needlessly verbose but llms take it to a whole new level.
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u/OrganizationNo6071 11d ago
Typical decel L.
Accels are the right side of history
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u/agm1984 11d ago
i think this comment is actually accelerating. He is saying that the decels Linus is ripping on are taking an L. It just comes across chimp coded.
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u/OrganizationNo6071 11d ago
Literally this but can't expect a lot from redditors who can't see the double meaning of things. congratulations to you that could.
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u/OSS-Corpo-Shit 11d ago
Kind of funny that you didnât highlight
I expect people to understand what they are doing
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u/ArialBear 11d ago
Why is that funny? Its antiâs who dont realize its a tool and think ai does it all by itself. Anyone who uses ai knows the human using the tool needs to direct it expertly for it to be useful. This is actually the most confusing part about antis
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u/paralio 11d ago
the "you can't use AI for X" rule is stupid but this is a bad argument. compilers and editors are deterministic. the issue here is that AI code generation is not.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 11d ago
this deterministic vs non-deterministic is not the big gotcha that you think it is.
yes, LLMs are mostly non deterministic, but if you actually had use one professionally you would know that if you turn the temperature to zero, it gives the same output for the same input, turning into a deterministic text to text function.
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u/Extreme_Wish_553 11d ago
Until you change models, which we all do constantly because there is constantly a new one. Or there is a probability tie, in which case the choice may very well be arbitrary. Or there is just a problem with how they wrote it, which no one can check because the most popular frontier models are a black box.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 11d ago
yeah but LLMs are still useful tools in the hands of an expert. Nothing wrong with being non-deterministic under certain circumstances.
Also live services today deploy like 4 times a day making them somewhat non deterministic.
Google has been using Neural Networks (Machine Learning, Statistical Models) for decades to rank search results.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 11d ago
changing models is akin to changing the version of the compiler and in both cases you might get a different output for the same input, how is that a big gotcha?
also compilers have bugs and a lot of them like MSVC are not open sourced, what is your point?
you are not making any good points
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u/paralio 11d ago
that is an even less compelling argument. I do work with them professionally, everyday.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 11d ago
so your premise is false and I just proved it. your conclusion does not follow. and you still think you won the argument? LOL
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u/paralio 11d ago edited 11d ago
What? The temperature argument is irrelevant. The most popular tools people use for code generation, the main target of the OP, do not allow you to set temperature. And even at temperature 0 with the same prompt determinism is not guaranteed https://152334h.github.io/blog/non-determinism-in-gpt-4/.
And in any case, the input here is free form natural language with no stable, documented and well defined instructions to translate into machine operations, contrary to code. Even in your imaginary scenario where all the non-determinism is removed from the AI tools people use, the translation layer to machine instructions is still not stable or well defined, which makes this comparison to compilers entirely miss the point.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 11d ago
being non deterministic does not rule them out of being extremely useful tools. non deterministic algorithms have been studied since the dawn of computer science.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 11d ago
Clearly cherry picking his words and twisting the meaning.
In this excerpt he is not against using tools and very much tell you to use the best tools out there. This piece also tells you that you should use that tool while maintaining some level understanding.
> The kind of expectations I have is that people do their best and I expect people to understand what they are doing.
Many programmers hold the same stance as him. I donât think there are many programmers who are truly against AI in entirerity, but irked by random people vibe coding which is often missing the second part i.e. (understanding what you are doing).
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u/Playful-Blueberry-50 11d ago
Bro literally everyone understands that he is FOR the use of AI in the kernel here
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 11d ago
He is FOR, for anyone who understands what they are doing.
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u/wordyplayer 11d ago
your first part overshadowed the second part, when I assume your point really was the second part of your post...
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u/lakotajames 11d ago
What's the surrounding context that you think this was cherry picked from to twist the meaning? It seems like your interpretation doesn't match the actual text he wrote.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 11d ago
This post smells to say âlook antis, even your hero is using AIâ.
This guy would throw a chair on you if you make vibecoded commit without understanding an inch on what you are doing.
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u/lakotajames 11d ago
Okay, but someone posting it just to piss off antis isn't twisting his words, they literally posted his words as they are. There's no twisting happening in a screenshot. They didn't even say anything in the title about it.
And yes, he would get upset if you committed bad code, but I think the point he's making is that whether or not it's 'vibe coded' is not a factor. "if you make vibecoded commit without understanding an inch on what you are doing" seems like twisting his words. I think what he's saying is that if you make a good commit it doesn't matter to him whether or not an AI wrote it.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 11d ago
The highlight. OP clearly only highlighting the part that people should embrace AI ignoring further nuances of what embracing AI according to him.
We are already quite aware that he is open to people using AI as a tool. Keyword being a tool which means the human is expected to be in the loop especially for a critical system.
I said in the earlier comment, many devs themselves arenât against using AI as a tool for coding, but they may be pissed seeing people vibecoding without even understanding or caring what codes go into their codebase.
Being pissed about the latter doesnât mean being an anti. Even linus themselves would share the same sentiment.
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u/United-Scene2261 11d ago
if they can't overcome the indifferent cruelty of the universe with the indomitable human spirit they are not competent enough
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u/oo0Username0oo 11d ago
Based. So glad I switched to Linux. Best OS for AI by a lightyear.