// ZDNET — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
‘I use AI to do the things that I’m bad at’: Linus Torvalds on why it works for him
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The Linux creator calls vibe coding 'a wonderful way to find joy in programming,' but not for running Linux development. (Finding bugs is OK.)
PRAGUE – Many open-source developers still dislike AI. The latest example is System76 banning AI-generated content from its COSMIC desktop. At Open Source Summit Europe, Linux creator Linus Torvalds offered a different take: “I actually really like using AI,” Torvald told Dirk Hohndel, his good friend and head of Ericsson Software Technology, in their latest discussion.
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But that enthusiasm comes with a distinction worth keeping in mind. Using AI to make a hobby project more enjoyable is one thing. Using it responsibly in the Linux kernel, where generated patches and bug reports can overwhelm maintainers, is another.
Torvalds said, “I think that you need to be very careful using AI when you’re doing something real and important.”
Torvalds explained he hadn’t always felt that way about AI programming. “I used to think it was just not very good — but now I’m at the point where I actually really like using AI.”
“To be fair,” he continued, “I don’t do a lot of kernel programming. I’m a maintainer. The Linux kernel is a project where other people do the real work, and I act as the collection point. But I still enjoy programming immensely. I think AI is a wonderful tool if you use it correctly and treat it as a tool, and I find it makes programming much more enjoyable.”
Torvalds recalled, “I started programming in 1981 or so, and back then computers were much simpler, and you could understand what they were doing, and also the programs you compared your own programs to were much simpler.”
“It’s a different story today,” Torvalds said. “The bar in software engineering has grown so high that it’s hard to see your own small efforts as worth anything, because you’re used to all these polished, professional programs. “