in your version of the conspiracy theory, the developers are pressured to use AI for their patches in Linux from the company. not that they want to use it because they want to? Like everyone else?
Anecdotal, but the only people I've met who are truly excited about AI tooling were the lowest contributers prior to AI tooling becoming prevalent. The senior devs I interact with on a regular basis are largely negative on the trend, both for code quality issues and the burden it puts on them as reviewers. I can personally say that I am entirely burned out from reviewing the crappiest code I've ever seen, all day, every day, with no end in sight. When it takes less time to generate a revision than it does to review it, this is inevitable. Most people I work with have simply lowered their standards for code quality to meet management expectations for code velocity.
I am not a kernel developer. That being said, I've been here for a bit and have worked across many different teams. Management communication and direction is not a secret here. It is well known what the expectations are for devs. I was directly told as much during a recent internal interview with a post-silicon team.
If my lack of direct kernel experience somehow negates the messaging and mandates from management that I see every day, then I guess there's not much more I can contribute to this discussion.
The reason I asked you is because I already have anecdotes and real life data for CRUD devs.
I just can't fathom why people would be pressured to use AI. My hunch is that some people kind of begrudgingly admit that it actually makes people faster and they use it. These kind of people would rather like doing things a bit slowly.
I completely agree!
> I just can't fathom why people would be pressured to use AI.
I can only speculate, and I obviously don't have any insight into why the mandates and usage targets exist, so I won't comment on that. I absolutely see value in using AI tooling as an additional validation step, but the generative side is what gives me pause. Maybe I've just seen too many cases of irresponsible use, but I'm not fully convinced that using the tools for _writing_ code produces better results.
You were right to callout the distinction, and my apologies if I responded too bluntly. One of your original replies referred to company mandates as "conspiracy theories", which is where my hesitation to engage came from.
Anyway, I think we're largely in agreement regarding your closing paragraph.
But my main point is that it is a bit strange to see these patches that are self disclosed as AI use and then come to conclusion that they were pressured to use it rather then use it because it is useful. I have never come across this kind of pressure, which is why I call it a conspiracy theory.
These things are what the pressure consists of. Some probably do feel pressured against their will. For some the encouragement changes their will. Some want to use it regardless of anything.
But whether you call it pressure, encouragement, or incentives, its there and it does affect how people think and act.