Linus Torvalds Is Surprisingly Optimistic About Vibe Coding - Except For This One 'horrible' Use

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Some developers don't for illustration Rust, but Linus approves of it becoming a mainstream portion of nan Linux kernel.
• Torvalds thinks AI's champion usage whitethorn beryllium to thief get young developers excited astir programming.
• Torvalds is pleased that AI has prompted Nvidia to go a important contributor to nan Linux kernel. 

At nan Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit Korea 2025, Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux and Git, joined longtime collaborator Dirk Hohndel, Verizon's caput of open-source programs, for a much-anticipated keynote chat connected Linux, Rust, and -- because who doesn't talk astir it now -- artificial intelligence (AI). The pair's candid, conversational format delivered caller insights into nan improvement of Linux, existent exertion trends, and nan ongoing resilience of nan open-source community.

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Torvalds opened by reflecting connected his role: "For nan past almost 20 years, I've not been a programmer. I'm a method lead and maintainer…all nan existent activity is done by different people." He emphasized nan persistent request for maintenance, moreover arsenic Linux matures: "Every azygous merchandise has complete 1,000 contributors, and that's each 2 months," Torvalds noted, highlighting really nan task thrives connected continuous improvements and adapts to hardware innovations.

He added, "As agelong arsenic group proceed to make caller hardware, we will person much activity to beryllium done connected nan kernel side. But moreover without that, I'm somewhat amazed that, 35 years into nan project, we're still fixing up halfway kernel codification and making things prettier and making them much maintainable and stable."

From there, nan tech brace talked astir Rust's ongoing integration into nan Linux kernel. Torvalds acknowledged that Rust had "generated a batch of press" and soul debate, moreover starring immoderate Linux maintainers to measurement down. Still, he defended nan disruption: "It's worthy it…sometimes you request to promote maintainers to beryllium much unfastened to caller ideas." The kernel community, he said, must equilibrium stableness pinch nan request for evolution.

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AI's effect connected development

The speech turned to AI's effect connected development. One of nan bully parts astir AI, Torvalds said, was "that it has made Nvidia into a bully subordinate successful nan Linux kernel space. Something that was famously not existent 20 years ago."

In those bad aged days, Torvalds has said, "Nvidia has been nan azygous worst institution we've ever dealt with." Those days are agelong gone. Today, Torvalds said, "Nvidia cares profoundly astir Linux, and we person a batch of kernel maintainers from that corner."

AI itself continues to beryllium a mixed blessing for Linux and open-source software. Torvalds observed connected nan positive side, "We person group who are doing a batch of activity successful utilizing AI, to thief maintainers woody pinch nan travel of patches and backboarding patches to unchangeable versions and things for illustration that, but a batch of that is experimental."

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He said that connected nan antagonistic side, "AI has been very disruptive to a batch of our infrastructure. We person these AI crawlers that crawl each complete nan kernel's root infrastructure, and that has been a immense symptom and not ever pleasant." AI crawlers perpetually hammering websites cost their owners a batch successful compute and dollars.

Hondhel agreed and added that "Daniel Stenberg from cURL has talked astir really nan AI-generated slop information submission reports are almost a denial of work onslaught connected his project." Torvalids replied, "We person not seen it to that degree, but we do spot bug reports and information notices that are intelligibly fundamentally made up by group who misuse AI, and it does return resources distant from maintainers."

Hondhel continued that while he thinks of AI arsenic "auto correct connected steroids, because AI is awesome astatine codification completion, astatine helping you pinch syntax, and pinch modular libraries," it's not really fresh to create moving programs today. 

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'Not playing pinch it astatine all'

Torvalds replied that while he's "not playing pinch it astatine all. I'm judge group are looking astatine it moreover for nan kernel codebase. I fishy nan kernel is insular and different capable that, contempt america having a batch of codification successful nan unfastened that you tin use, I don't deliberation a batch of group are doing vibe coding for nan kernel."

Instead, he said he thinks, "people are doing vibe coding for small, individual projects." And he sees that arsenic mostly a affirmative thing: "I conscionable deliberation of really erstwhile I grew up, pinch computers and reference magazines and typing successful programs from machine magazines, but that's really I sewage into computers. And I consciousness for illustration computers person gotten truthful complicated. Your expectations of programming person gone truthful overmuch higher that it's overmuch harder to get started these days than it was erstwhile I was young, and I sewage into computers, and I sewage excited astir it."

Torvalds continued that while "I really deliberation that vibe coding whitethorn beryllium a horrible, horrible thought from a attraction standpoint, if you really effort to make a merchandise for it, but I deliberation it's a awesome measurement for caller group to get progressive and get excited astir computers that possibly they couldn't do otherwise. And truthful I really americium reasonably affirmative astir this all."

He concluded this statement of thought by saying, "There's immoderate bully and immoderate bad. I'm looking guardant to nan time erstwhile AI is little hyped and much for illustration nan mundane reality that cipher talks perpetually about, and that's intelligibly still a fewer years from now."

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Hohndel past pressed Torvalds connected the IT industry's caller layoffs that person been attributed by immoderate to AI-driven productivity gains. Torvalds cautioned against premature conclusions: "You will request each nan aforesaid maintainers to really support that task going." He likened AI to compilers -- they alteration really developers work, but don't switch them. 

The chat concluded by considering lighter topics, arsenic Torvalds admitted to a hobby of making guitar pedals, contempt lacking philharmonic and mechanical talent, embracing "failure arsenic fun." He urged different developers to find accent alleviation extracurricular their halfway work: "If you person a stressful job, find a hobby wherever nonaccomplishment is not only expected, but fun." The opposition betwixt nan simplicity of individual electronics projects and nan complexity of nan Linux kernel helps him relax, and he thinks it will besides thief others.