The Linux Kernel is probably one of the best ecosystems to observe regarding the impact of AI in programming. The critical importance of its code and its maintainers' quality standards mean that patches, including but not only AI slop, go through rigorous review and are often discarded. Still, the amount of AI-produced code is often far higher than what the human reviewers can deal with. Lorenzo Stoakes, a lead Linux reviewer for memory management, has elected to step down from some of his former duties for exactly that reason.

Stoakes announced his decision today in a thread on the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML). He'll be leaving the core, reclaim, Rust, THP (Huge Pages), and miscellaneous sections of the kernel memory management section, while staying on for his remaining duties, including KVM. The partial departure appears amicable, and the developer doesn't appear to be angry or bitter. He says that his decision was due to the mounting pressure on his inbox, that he'll wrap up the patch series he's currently working on, and he'll occasionally pitch in regardless.

However, the underlying cause is also clear: "Of course the AI wave has been horrible, and is getting significantly worse. At first it was once in a while that I'd see slop. Then it was at least once a week. Then every few days. Nowadays it's pretty much half of what I see, if not more."

This is a sentiment echoed by many programmers in the open-source community, and the latest in a running series of AI-provoked project departures, submission rules adjustments, and strategic shifts.

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