--- title: Torvalds: AI is fine for competent devs, but spare us... description: Linux kernel maintainers have dropped the requirement to disclose AI use in code submissions. Sasha Levin announced the deprecation of the 'Assisted-by' tag at... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Torvalds: AI is fine for competent devs, but spare us the 'drive-by' patches | daily.dev og:description: Linux kernel maintainers have dropped the requirement to disclose AI use in code submissions. Sasha Levin announced the deprecation of the 'Assisted-by' tag at... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vDBe02qAM.png og:image:alt: Torvalds: AI is fine for competent devs, but spare us the 'drive-by' patches og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Torvalds: AI is fine for competent devs, but spare us the 'drive-by' patches **[The Register](https://daily.dev/sources/theregister)** · 7 min read · 1 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Linux kernel maintainers have dropped the requirement to disclose AI use in code submissions. Sasha Levin announced the deprecation of the 'Assisted-by' tag at the Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit in Prague. Linus Torvalds says competent developers should use AI as a tool, but wants to discourage 'drive-by patches' from people who don't understand the code they submit. He identifies two separate AI problems: a flood of real bugs AI finds in the large kernel codebase that burdens maintainers, and people generating patches without understanding them. Greg Kroah-Hartman says AI bug reports went from 'slop' to genuinely useful about a month earlier. Red Hat's Christian Schaller created a tool called hw-harness while working on a Linux driver for a slide scanner, providing tooling to work out how hardware behaves so a Linux driver can be written. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does the Linux kernel still require contributors to disclose AI-assisted patches? No, Linux kernel maintainers deprecated the 'Assisted-by' tag, so contributors no longer need to disclose whether AI helped write a patch. Sasha Levin announced this at the Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit in Prague. The requirement for quality remains unchanged: sloppy code still won't pass review regardless of how it was produced. _Kernel contributors weighing AI workflows can follow policy shifts like this one on daily.dev._ ### What does Linus Torvalds think about using AI to write Linux kernel patches? Linus Torvalds supports competent developers using AI as a programming tool but wants to discourage 'drive-by patches' from people who submit AI-generated code without understanding it. He distinguishes two separate AI problems: a flood of real bugs AI surfaces in the large kernel codebase that burdens maintainers, and contributors generating patches they don't actually understand. _Developers tracking how maintainers balance AI and code quality can follow this debate on daily.dev._ ### Have AI-generated bug reports for open source projects like Linux actually improved in quality? Yes, according to Greg Kroah-Hartman, AI-generated security and bug reports for Linux and other open source projects shifted from mostly low-quality 'AI slop' to genuinely useful findings. He described the change happening within about a month, noting that other open source projects are also now receiving real, AI-assisted reports rather than obviously wrong ones. _Maintainers sorting signal from noise in AI bug reports can track these shifts on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@stefan\_pantelich** · 0 upvotes > Seems fair. If you submit a patch, you should be able to explain why it works and stick around for review. Generating it in seconds doesn’t mean it takes maintainers seconds to verify. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI Code Gets Approved in the Linux Kernel… But With Strings Attached](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-code-gets-approved-in-the-linux-kernel-but-with-strings-attached-0nh5ps1dc) · It's Foss · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Linux development is really benefiting from AI, but not from its coding](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-development-is-really-benefiting-from-ai-but-not-from-its-coding-waryldg10) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Torvalds: AI is fine for competent devs, but spare us the 'drive-by' patches","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam"},"datePublished":"2026-10-23T11:33:39.509Z","dateModified":"2026-10-23T11:34:11.675Z","description":"Linux kernel maintainers have dropped the requirement to disclose AI use in code submissions. 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If you submit a patch, you should be able to explain why it works and stick around for review. Generating it in seconds doesn’t mean it takes maintainers seconds to verify.","datePublished":"2026-10-23T12:34:53.740Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/vDBe02qAM#c-vqy3BzTre","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"stefan","url":"https://daily.dev/stefan_pantelich","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--I6Ev1To4--/f_auto,pg_1/v1792375454/avatars/avatar_e6XceZRN8HrFNdwxMkLMk?_a=BAMAMicg0"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/torvalds-ai-is-fine-for-competent-devs-but-spare-us-the-drive-by-patches-vdbe02qam#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Does the Linux kernel still require contributors to disclose AI-assisted patches?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No, Linux kernel maintainers deprecated the 'Assisted-by' tag, so contributors no longer need to disclose whether AI helped write a patch. 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