In a nutshell: Linus Torvalds never minces words when asked to comment on open-source support or the latest technology trends. The Finnish software engineer recently joined an open-source focused event, where he had a thing or two to say about AI technology and "intelligent" algorithms.
Torvalds said that the current state of AI technology is 90 percent marketing and 10 percent factual reality. The developer, who won Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for the creation of the Linux kernel,
was interviewed during the Open Source Summit held in Vienna, where he had the chance to talk about both the open-source world and the latest technology trends.
The
outspoken technologist said that modern generative AI services are an interesting development in machine learning technology, and that they will eventually change the world. At the same time, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the "hype cycle" which is fueling too many AI-related initiatives and contributing to Nvidia's impossibly high
market evaluations.
Linus Torvalds says AI will change the world but it is currently 90% marketing and 10% reality, and it will take another 5 years for it to become clear what AI is really useful for
pic.twitter.com/6knFEfJbqf
– Tsarathustra (@tsarnick)
October 21, 2024
Everyone and their dog is currently talking about AI, or sticking some AI-based cloud service together, or funding an AI-focused multi-million startup somewhere in the world. Torvalds hates the hype cycle so much that he doesn't even want to go there. The developer is essentially ignoring everything AI, though things will likely change in a drastic way a few years from now.
In five years, Torvalds said, generative algorithms and machine learning tech will become much more useful and interesting. At that point, the entire world will be able to understand how AI can actually be used and what types of daily workloads it can "accelerate."
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The Linux creator isn't alone in his distrust for modern AI capabilities, with Baidu's CEO recently
stating that 99 percent of today's "AI companies" will soon go the way of the (digital) dodo.
ChatGPT and similar services are great as a pure technology demonstration, Torvalds conceded, and they are obviously already used in many areas and for different workloads. "But I really hate the hype cycle," he said, and we couldn't agree more.
During his Vienna interview, Torvalds said that development in the open-source community is now mostly driven by large companies rather than single developers. He reinforced his idea about computer security, especially when dealing with faulty hardware components. Torvalds also said that he prefers the C programming language over Rust, although the latter has been specifically designed to make memory-related bugs and software security issues a thing of the past.
