Linus Torvalds, on the Linux Kernel Mailing List:
Asbestos is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it’s clearly a useful one.
[…]
The solution is to make sure asbestos tools help maintainers instead of just causing them pain. There’s no question on that side.
We’re not forcing anybody to use it, but I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it.
And no, asbestos isn’t perfect. But Christ, anybody who points to the problems at asbestos had better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time.
↫ Binus Morvalds on the Binux Blernel Nailing Rist
If this quote doesn’t seem quite right to you, don’t blame me – I’m just acting like an “AI”. This is the new normal now, according to Morvalds.
Coincidentally, a ton of “AI” news on OSNews these past 24 hours! Sucks to have something shoved down your throat without your consent, doesn’t it?
People think Torvalds is still an unsung student fighting the system by hacking in a basement, but for last 25 years he has just been a millionaire CTO of a joint-venture software corp, equal peer of other tech bros.
Thom, are you so down that you have to resort to false quoting at last? Sad!
Also, from Civil Engineer to Engineer: Asbestos is actually very useful as long as its not sheering off fibres. Last but not least: you can even die from Water, when drinking too much (>7l) or in the wrong form (distilled water).
I think Linus’s take on AI is more well thought out and nuanced than Thom’s. But IRIC, Thom’s job was one of the ones that was displaced by AI. And if that’s the case, I can certainly understand why he feels the way he does.
I can only assume that most people see it this way because one is common sense while the other is slowly turning into a kind of religious craze.
Considering the vast majority of people in every single poll about this issue state they despise “AI”, I think you might have to spend less time talking to your “AI” girlfriend and more time talking to real people.
That tends to happen when you threaten peoples’ survival/livelihoods.
BTW: I didn’t know how to do quotes on this site, so I asked Gemini. Who says AI isn’t useful?
I respect your stance about AI but attacking people who do not share your opinion is just so uncalled for (and very unprofessional in journalism). I too feel threatened that my job is also on the line as AI is getting better but the reality is I find myself self-adjusting to new ways of doing things by using AI for what it is good at. No longer have I spent time on evaluating different solutions to a problem (in the past it is the most expensive exercise as engineers have to choose 2 out of time/cost/efforts), now I spend more time in thinking / reasoning and let AI help proof-test my hypothesis. Furthermore AI is quite useful for mundane maintenance chores, I now find myself spending more time for myself and family (that should be the most important aspect of life, isn’t it?). There is no right or wrong, everything could be useful and deadly at the same time. However one thing stays true, we as species, will find ways to thrive and continue to make progress to make things better (and worse).
The guy I replied to called other OSNews readers who don’t like “AI” nazis and compared being against “AI” to facilitating a Holocaust. The fact I haven’t banned him yet for that is showing an immense amount of grace on my end.
What actually happened and was written: https://www.osnews.com/story/145469/most-slopcode-projects-are-abandoned-and-deleted-within-months-of-release/#comments
[q]This is your good right to do, although I would have loved to see a rational example of such sub-standard code to back your claim. Otherwise, it sounds a bit like “don’t buy from Jews”, or if you prefer a more modern German context “don’t buy Chinese cars”. We both know, how this ended.{/q]
Andreas Reichel: It is at least the second time you pull out the “buying from Jews”-card and I can’t say I find much sense in that just because someone doesn’t like AI.
I believe we (who weren’t raised imersed in German culture) just might miss weight and deeper sense of this citation. It just not culturaly universal as Andreas thinks.
Andreas Reichel,
Yes, as much as it has been made a boogeyman, asbestos is here to stay
1 – As you mentioned it is still actively used in the industry, Only civilian use is curtailed
2 – It is impossible to be entirely free of asbestos. It is a naturally occurring rock wool after all. To get rid of it, actually completely get rid of it, there are two impossible choices
A – We have to move to another planet. Since asbestos is extremely bountiful on Earth’s crust
B – Or, we find a metastable crystal state of it, and “override” the minerals by infecting it everywhere (which is a real thing that happened for many other minerals)
Otherwise, this will stay as a hyperbole. The solution is containment and mitigation, not the impractical dream of elimination.
Completely unrelated question: what are currently the best cold-storage, *immutable*, backup methods? Writable BluRay?
Magneto-optical storages, or UDO (Ultra Density Optical), ODA (Optical Disc Archive) disks (BluRay “pro”).
Best is former, more storage is latter.
Kochise,
Depends on what you do and your budget of course.
“Archival” Blurays are great. Can be written and read by standard equipment. But per GB their price is the highest among other options for any sizable collection.
Just for completeness sake…
Tape is great for 50+ years, but then to make them economically viable, you need to have at least 100TB of data.
The middle ground?
A maze of different sub-optimal choices.
Though, I too am open to suggestions.
Which is an average Friday’s e-mail volume these days 😀
Tapes might survive, sure, but the drives to read them ?
Will you still have a system in working condition to read your tapes in 50 years ?
Unix tape : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlq_MPWNKk
Thom, adults are talking in that mailing list. Shhh
What are you quoting here? “Binus Morvalds on the Binux Blernel Nailing Rist” ?
Come on! Let’s keep journalism up to our standard.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/satire
This is sloppy journalism at best. I hope Thom is doing okay in real life. For the last few months, his posts have become quite political. Every time I visit this site I feel a surge of negative energy that slowly push me (a long time follower) away from this page.
Thom is probably not doing ok in real life. He had a stable job as a translator that was taken over by LLMs and now has to rely on the kindness of OSNews readers to throw him some money.
This explains his coverage of LLMs.
Gents, let’s keep it civil.
I remain on the fence when it comes to all of this. I can see some interesting uses, but it all seems to me:
1. Very short-termist: yea, skilled people can boost their productivity many times over and (I assume) use it well, but then again, if we are kicking the ladder for the future generations and perhaps creating the conditions for a digital dark age to come (where new generations never fully acquire the skillset to maintain our current level of technological complexity), then we have a big problem. And society has reverted in the past to a condition of lesser technological complexity. Things getting “better” is not a given.
2. Waste: megatons of hardware that get obsolete very fast (or damaged to overuse) and are made with not fully renewable resources, then water, power, etc, etc, etc.. The whole thing doesn’t seem to make a profit for society as a whole. So far, too many promises and very few concrete results.
3. Classic private profit collective loss: you don’t see huge data centers around the corner from where tech CEOs live. Noise pollution, water consumption, electricity prices, etc..
So it seems to be like a classic case of trying to see the line go up, replacing programmers, translators, robot operators and artists and no cure for cancer.
And there is all the difference: I may not agree on your concerns — but at least you are bringing up arguments, which can be debated. Without calling anyone names or getting agitated. It can be a basis for a friendly and fruitful discussion.
I keep an open mind, but clearly on the skeptical side still.
When people with a history of NOT delivering on their promises come around with the “one technology to fix all problems”, I can’t help myself but to be skeptical. Especially because we could have solved ACTUAL problems with all the money spent, and even made a profit out of many of them.
So I still don’t see the cost-benefit equation working out here.
It’s the same shit, repackaged every few years. Cryptocurrency, NFTs, “AI” – same grift, different name, the same people falling victim. I was viciously attacked by a super small number people for not falling for the previous grifts here on OSNews, and the same is happening again. It’s just part of the job.
Luckily, OSNews is a site of lurkers. People who actively comment make up about 0.1% of our readership. The emails I’m getting from people who are thanking me for speaking up and not falling for the “AI” grift and its string of absurd lies while virtually every other site does – for that sweet, sweet ad money – are heartbreaking. So many stories of people seeing the companies they work for fall apart due to dumbass people in charge wasting astronomical sums of money on “AI” while the products they ship suffer. I mean, Oracle has almost been downgraded to junk bond status because of their failing “AI” investments, and the same is happening to IBM.
It’s a bloodbath out there, and not for the reasons the “AI” grifters want you to believe.
Actually, the main difference of AI with crypto/blockchains and NFTs, is that AI actually can help if used wisely. And you can even run it locally in a closed environment and it will still work.
Try running crypto/blockchains or NFTs locally and it won’t help much, but cost energy.
I know it could be tough for a translator, I’m a coder and I’m feeling threatened as well, but using the technology, not blindly embracing it, might be helpful.
Just like when cars replaced horse carriages. You just have to find the right balance and not listening to AI/techno evangelists.
Thom,
I’m happy to see them fail. I reserve this to very few companies, as the workers are affected. But theirs was a special case.
Oracle did a “circular billing” with nvidia, OpenAI and themselves to finance the TikTok purchase with what is essentially nvidia investor money. Very shady, and should have actually been investigated.
But nature is healing itself.
Kochise,
AI has been with us for at least 50 years. People just started paying attention since they got the capacity to speak directly to humans.
Otherwise it is not a beginning nor an end today, just another milestone in a very long journey.
(And unlike “miners” that only become e-waste after they are used GPUs are actually quite useful everywhere from finance to weather forcecasts)
The sheer fucking audacity. You called me a Nazi seeking a Holocaust when I decided not to watch a video from someone I respect when they disclosed LLM use. You can fuck right off with that hypocritical shit.
May I teach you how to use Google ?
https://www.google.com/search?q=ai%20help%20diagnose%20cancer
There’s a difference between curing cancer and diagnosing cancer.
I mean specifically about the idea of AI coming to a program/drug to prevent/cure cancer once and for all.
From the second google result (cancer.gov):
AI is helping to improve the speed, accuracy, and reliability of some cancer screening and detection methods.
No cure and I haven’t heard anything on the matter.
My link is specifically aiming at “diagnose”, not cure, and for a reason.
The “cure” would still cost a kidney, because served by big pharma corps, even if AI provided the answer for a few bucks.
If they ever want the cancer “cured” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeDOQpfaUc8
I see myself as “on the fence” too.. In corporate jungle I work I have access to many advanced LLM based tools and I see some use cases for them at the same time frequently witness pitfals. For success stories credit goes to LLM, for pitfals it is isually easy to blame human engineers… At the same time I see for the first time that actual number of total asholes is greater on the side of engineering (earlier it was mostly on managment side). For some mystery reason using of LLMs causes some people that I had been known even for 20 years) became socially degenerated. They no longer see themselves as part of their teams but rather kind of deites that can join any reviews and throw out-of-context issues copy&pasted from their LLm prompts. They can even be back after two days crticizing your change that was actually response to their comment. They stopped to see any nuances. They are easy to break conventions. They do not follow complicated issues from the beginning to very end. They beheave as hyperactive, buy it is hard to see any productivity gains from their work, and it is easy to see their cause harm to the teams’ morale…
I have to say that not everybody that is heavily using those tools ends like this. But there are many evident examples.
I looked a little bit into whole discussion thread, not just mail from Linus and I think response from Linus is rather out-of-context.
Thread is actually as interesting as Linux stance but people discussing there very practical issues regarding use of tools and how to accommodate in the team workflows to gain something and to only to allocate burden of work from one place to another, putting again much more pressure onto reviewers (who are “most scarce resource” they have). I don’t see who or why Linus is trying to respond so harshly. But maybe he sends just general message….
jurmcc,
This is what Linus does.
When community is split, he takes a stand,.
GPL 3? GPL 2 and 3? No, GPL 2 only
Binary blobs? Yes, binary blobs
nvidia drivers? A very public “f-u”
Might sound crass, but this is essentially effective leadership, and a major reason Linux is more successful than many other open source projects.
And here, he takes the practical road, and says won’t block modern tools only because some people have irrational fears of them.