Linux creator Linus Torvalds says AI is like a “gateway drug”
AI creates more productivity than it takes away.
Linus Torvalds. Image by Krd via Wikipedia/Illustration by Cybernews
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- Linus Torvalds says he now enjoys using AI for tasks he is bad at.
- Torvalds called AI a "gateway drug" that can help new programmers enjoy coding.
- He says AI tools currently create more productivity than they take from the Linux kernel community.
- Torvalds warns AI-generated bug reports can still waste developer time when they contain false claims.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Linux creator Linus Torvalds has come to the point where he enjoys using AI, especially for the things he is bad at.
Speaking at the Open Source Summit Europe, which took place October 7–9, 2026, Torvalds said vibe coding is “a wonderful way to find joy in programming” because it allows new programmers to do things they would otherwise find difficult to do.
He said he loved “the concept of AI as a gateway drug,” as he uses the technology for his own toy projects.
“I had a user interface that I had written myself in C that was running on a microcontroller that was running on this small screen, and I was like, ‘This is just stupid. It looks like something from the ’80s; I wanted it to look like something from this century. But I don’t do Java. I do kernels’,” he is quoted as saying by ZDNET.
The remarks may reflect a shift in Torvalds’ view on AI, which he described as “90% marketing and 10% reality” in 2024, although he said he believed AI would change the world in the next 5 years.
In July, Torvalds, who is known for his unfiltered takes on technology, said that Linux was not an “anti-AI” project, telling contributors who objected to walk away or fork the kernel.
Now he says to use AI for the things he is bad at.
“I’d seen all the same YouTube videos you have. Give AI a prompt, and it will do it. So I gave it a prompt, and it did it, and it was horrendous. Then I said, ‘Hey, look! I already did this in C. I did it the right way. It’s just ugly,” Torvalds is quoted by ZDNET.
AI creates productivity, Torvalds says
Speaking at the Open Source Summit in Mumbai in June, Torvalds said that LLMs currently create more productivity than they take away from the Linux kernel community.
However, while LLMs started generating less “junk” in early 2026, they can still be a “huge drain” on resources.
“It is taking a lot of resources from developers because you get these bug reports that look entirely valid, and it can take quite a lot of effort to figure out that it was just a hallucination,” Torvalds says.
Even though AI was increasingly producing good bug reports, most of them require “more than just an LLM.”
