Torvalds Calls AI Workflow a Healthier Model as Linux 7.4 Opens

Linus Torvalds has published the opening test build of Linux 7.4 and said the kernel project now handles AI-assisted patches in a way he considers far better than before, according to The Register. He made the remarks in his regular weekly update on the state of the kernel.

This development cycle has drawn close to 20,000 commits, well above the roughly 15,000 that typically arrive when a new kernel cut is prepared. Torvalds described the window as a big one and said he views the volume as encouraging rather than worrying.

His reasoning is that AI-generated work is now arriving during the merge window, the period when new code is pulled in, instead of piling up later as corrective patches during the release candidate stage. He said he is far more comfortable with that pattern and hopes it shows AI fixes are settling into ordinary development rather than swamping the stabilization phase. He called it a healthier approach.

He did add a caveat. Torvalds noted that many people expect 7.4 to become the next long-term support release, which he said is a separate reason some kernel versions end up larger than others.

He also signalled that not every AI submission is useful. In his description of the release, he said it is large and carries many fixes for problems that AI tools found, with a growing share of the patches themselves proposed by AI, though those often get rewritten before merging.

One component dominates the changeset. Register offsets and bit masks for AMD GPUs account for about a third of the modifications this time. Torvalds wrote that the project has seen this kind of thing before and will likely see it again, and advised ignoring the noise.

Phoronix, which tracks kernel development, lists better support for processors from AMD, Apple and Google among the main inclusions. It also points to tweaks that strengthen security for virtualized systems, backing for a Raspberry Pi 10-inch monitor, and further work on running Linux on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 chip for PCs.