At the Open-Source Summit 2026 conference, Linus Torvalds discussed trends in the use of AI tools for Linux kernel development during his opening talk. According to Linus, the number of commits has significantly increased over the past six months. For instance, approximately 20% more commits were made in the latest two kernel releases compared to previously released branches. This change is attributed to the fact that AI tools have reached a quality level acceptable for many developers in recent months, leading to a clear rise in AI application across nearly all areas of development.
Linus characterized the recent influx of bug reports identified with the help of AI assistants as a short-term pain that will yield long-term benefits—any identified and corrected bug is better than one that remains unnoticed. For small teams and individual maintainers, the flood of AI-generated error messages becomes troublesome and leads to burnout, especially when such reports are sent unchecked and the sender is unable to answer questions or provide additional information.
Regarding AI, Linus stated that it is merely another tool enhancing work efficiency and changing the development approach, but not altering the principles of programming. The emergence of compilers and high-level languages once boosted development productivity by a thousandfold, freeing developers from the need to input machine code dumps and calculate offsets for branching operations. Similarly, AI allows for productivity increases by taking over routine tasks, leaving developers to focus on task formulation and result verification. It is essential for developers not only to know how to form queries but also to have the expertise to assess and verify results. The AI assistant is seen as a new link before the compiler, which once simplified development by serving as a link before the assembler.
Source: opennet.ru
