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AI in Linux

drewdevault.com

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Re: AI in Linux

#61

Post by NewJazz »

kouteiheika wrote: post #54
NewJazz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really disingenuous way to characterize the article (CO2 and global warming were much more of a focus than water, so your "or something" is doing a lot of work). Furthermore your comment ignores key arguments in the article, particularly the argument that contributors should not be forced to participate in AI-based ceremonies such as LLM code review that they may object to on personal ethical grounds.

> This is a really disingenuous way to characterize the article (CO2 and global warming were much more of a focus than water, so your "or something" is doing a lot of work). Remind me please, how much exactly do data centers contribute to greenhouse emissions? And how much something like, I don't know, meat production contribute? If my Googling is correct, apparently a single ChatGPT query produces ~0.004 kg CO2e/kg.…

What's with this whataboutism? What if I told you I was vegan? What if I told you I only drive to work or to medical appointments? Would you pull another excuse out to justify your emissions?

I've seen anti-AI protests. Where are all the anti-meat protests?

Fucking everywhere bro.

Re: AI in Linux

#62

Post by Legend2440 »

dminik wrote: post #60
Legend2440 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is also an incredibly useful tool that could automate many industries, so it deserves some leeway because of the benefits it provides. And while it is 'fastest-growing', it is small as an absolute share - around 0.2% of total world CO2 emissions.

So it can both outprice people as well as take their jobs? Well, leeway away.

The only reason we have the standard of living we do today is because of automation. I welcome more of it.

Re: AI in Linux

#63

Post by NewJazz »

atemerev wrote: post #31
ch71r22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article isn't trying to find a particular example. It's talking about the overall stance of Linux on AI use. It argues that maintainers should consider political/moral/ethical arguments around climate change, effect on water supplies, energy prices, etc.

AI is just a tech like any other. Can be powered by CO2-neutral electricity like anything else. Otherwise, we'll have to protest against aluminum cans, airplanes, golf courts, lemon trees, and whatever else that uses water or electricity.

Plenty of people campaign against things like airplanes or golf courses. They might even be the same folks protesting AI usage! Imagine that!

Re: AI in Linux

#64

Post by Legend2440 »

atemerev wrote: post #57
ch71r22 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false equivalence. AI is not the same as aluminum cans. All technologies have political, social, ethical, and economic aspects, and not all technologies are the same. AI is not, in reality, powered by CO2-neutral electricity. As the article mentions, AI is the fastest-growing energy user in the world, so it probably merits a deeper look than aluminum cans.

Aluminum production is one of the largest electricity consumers out there, much larger than AI.

True in fact. Aluminum manufacturing is responsible for roughly 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and if you add in metal manufacturing as a whole it comes up to 11%. Refining ore is very energy-intensive.

Re: AI in Linux

#65

Post by andersonpico »

logancbrown wrote: post #11

>The same process is pricing regular people out of the energy they need to power their air conditioner during those heat waves and the technology it enables is pushing them out of the labor market and into poverty. I don't see evidence this is true, and the critical mass of data centers is making electricity cheaper. Economies of scale -> more energy = bigger electric plants = cheaper energy. https://netchoice.org/ne…

netchoice is a lobbying organization for the hyperscalers, you're straight up sharing a propaganda piece

Re: AI in Linux

#66

Post by sav_m »

If everything is political, as DDV likes to rant every now and then, then Linus' politics are those related to how software is to be developed and distributed. I don't see why a software project _should_ care about global warming, minorities, state policies and other issues outside of its scope. It could, and it can be a good thing to do, but it doesn't need to.

It feels wrong to me, though, to see AI being used in kernel development, as I see the trouble it causes on regular projects.

Re: AI in Linux

#67

Post by keeda »

> Looking at it from another angle: how many tons of CO₂ added to the atmosphere or liters of fresh water supplies disrupted is a tolerable price for a better code review?

Fewer than if a human had done it without AI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48941143

I guess that means he should advocate for more use of AI for Linux dev! ;-)

Re: AI in Linux

#68

Post by cuu508 »

Legend2440 wrote: post #53
ch71r22 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false equivalence. AI is not the same as aluminum cans. All technologies have political, social, ethical, and economic aspects, and not all technologies are the same. AI is not, in reality, powered by CO2-neutral electricity. As the article mentions, AI is the fastest-growing energy user in the world, so it probably merits a deeper look than aluminum cans.

AI is also an incredibly useful tool that could automate many industries, so it deserves some leeway because of the benefits it provides. And while it is 'fastest-growing', it is small as an absolute share - around 0.2% of total world CO2 emissions.

Incredibly useful for some definition of incredibly useful. What I see:

- I now regularly receive AI-written spam emails (marketing pitches, "vulnerability reports").

- I was receiving AI-written garbage quality pull requests. It got so annoying I closed pull requests on my project's repo.

- When I try to contact some company's customer support these days there's a good chance I will be fed slop by an agent posing as a customer support person, this is absolutely infuriating.

- When I search for information on the internet, for certain queries, 90% of the results is slop.

- AI crawlers are DDoSing websites.

- The already mentioned things – hardware getting more expensive, climate impact, unethically sourced training data.

Re: AI in Linux

#69

Post by keeda »

tavoe wrote: post #22
throwuxiytayq wrote: post #2

tl;dr Kernel devs should prompt less because it uses up water or something. Repeat after me: you can't put the cat back in the bag. Pandora's box is open. Sucks, but you have to learn to live with the reality that most developers will use AI to write code from now on.

How do I know if comments like this come from a real person or a bot? Your suggestion that "anything popular cannot be morally wrong" is proposterous. It feels like you're trying to bait people into arguing with you in a way I associate with bot spam. But on the off change you're a real person - I will politely say - just because something is useful and popular doesn't meant it doesn't have negative externalities and…

> Your suggestion that "anything popular cannot be morally wrong" is proposterous.

It’s not about being popular, it’s about facing a new economic reality. Once machines were invented there was no going back to human labor, no matter how bad it was for the displaced workers or the environment.

Technology has always been a relentless economic force. And this is largely because despite the myriad externalities, it’s blindingly obvious that we as a species are, on average, much better off with technology than without.

Re: AI in Linux

#70

Post by loudmax »

This is an important conversation to have and we should pretty clearly about what the issues are.

I didn't see any objection to LLM assisted development in the abstract. The objection is to relying on proprietary AI providers in general, and Gemini in particular, via Shashiko. The problem is that kernel contributions could become gated by hyperscalers who can draw on compute power normal people can't access.

Devault mentions data centers' carbon emissions and water usage. I find both of these objections to be distractions. It's not that carbon emissions don't matter. Keeping greenhouse gasses in check is incredibly important. But there are far more productive ways to cut carbon emissions than to block data centers. Heavy industry consumes far more electricity than data centers, for less economic value. This is even truer for water use. If carbon emissions is a major concern (as it should be), there are better targets to go after than data centers.

A more compelling argument is the danger that the Linux kernel becomes something that's effectively controlled by proprietary AI providers: Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, etc. The photo of tech company leaders at Trump's inauguration underscores their lack of any moral compass.

But if AI-driven kernel development is actually useful and productive, that's going to be hard to turn down. If you believe that LLM use is technically counter-productive, then this whole AI thing is a bubble and you can just wait for it to pop. If you believe that LLMs can be technically productive if used correctly, and the drawbacks are entirely social, then it means giving up something technically useful. That is a real cost.

I think Linus is right here: it would be hard for regular kernel developers to coordinate a fork of the project. It might not be that hard for the hyperscalers to simply fork Linux. They would still release the source code under the GPL, but nobody would be able to keep up with it. Ultimately, this could doom the human-written version of the kernel to irrelevance as most people switch to the faster/stronger/harder LLM-derived fork.

Maybe a reasonable medium would be to insist on using an open model for code review instead of depending on Gemini or any proprietary model.

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