From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lamorak.hansenpartnership.com (lamorak.hansenpartnership.com [198.37.111.173]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8CF623ED119 for ; Mon, 9 Mar 2026 18:54:53 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=198.37.111.173 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1773082494; cv=none; b=VbYIKm9rxBXMDzMFQrJZYKMcWIuqYaIr69SFOfQ1Osc684F6X/5W4LA7F4NEXySzjt/4BipOXkZUbdf1ZtVKSi0z9+4BEH4ioKs2e+xkCvJP9W1lDVgm7i5C1/hZUMbM4rwN3YZJiq/VU4uB6umD4QHVOZIrkBXfKnGmbEOzerU= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1773082494; c=relaxed/simple; bh=VXLVLTvNF+pBkE1P7w8ADiOlR+TSRR/rTLvtN3Dlv5o=; h=Message-ID:Subject:From:To:Cc:Date:In-Reply-To:References: Content-Type:MIME-Version; b=Y+weEuzcPPA671u55zbmB90Cw5/Ip/HB87CVvE2xHvpyARbWWtXtihhMrw4fIl11vbjq6wcQP3slSWU5gpp7IKsvbSmX951KPFglQBvkowztO8OO54xemwL8pHRCQFRlD0jxN9q8Gzm0bZ2ZHqdWAOWmGg49Eb18ly0psyAW+Rg= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=quarantine dis=none) header.from=HansenPartnership.com; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=HansenPartnership.com; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=hansenpartnership.com header.i=@hansenpartnership.com header.b=hAICTxBA; arc=none smtp.client-ip=198.37.111.173 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=quarantine dis=none) header.from=HansenPartnership.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=HansenPartnership.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=hansenpartnership.com header.i=@hansenpartnership.com header.b="hAICTxBA" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=hansenpartnership.com; s=20151216; t=1773082492; bh=VXLVLTvNF+pBkE1P7w8ADiOlR+TSRR/rTLvtN3Dlv5o=; h=Message-ID:Subject:From:To:Date:In-Reply-To:References:From; b=hAICTxBAzxyAI6Mscd80g1Lk3BriHzASw3AfYAUpLKk/NavOkFMxBAO9vVCs3ssyl Cc4avBi72bgD5l/F0gxsldpUtHiYlZgH2U/v8xxDQkCBcOgWhL0xWtvfFvToPHkdye UqvHPk/Cl6Cs/NFTzjkvbsP9M2+7SHd59sIH6nKo= Received: from [172.19.0.240] (unknown [75.104.92.120]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange x25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits) server-digest SHA256) (No client certificate requested) by lamorak.hansenpartnership.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A758A1C0132; Mon, 09 Mar 2026 14:54:44 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <8ffee3e24af71efeac18263ba24414649b9488b2.camel@HansenPartnership.com> Subject: Re: LLM based rewrites From: James Bottomley To: Steven Rostedt Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" , Jonathan Corbet , Christian Brauner , tech-board-discuss@lists.linux.dev, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, christianvanbrauner@gmail.com Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:54:39 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20260309143406.3d45e36e@gandalf.local.home> References: <20260307-clean-room-6118793eb175@brauner> <20260309095705.7a6b6177@gandalf.local.home> <20260309121629.21cabc25@gandalf.local.home> <871phtvu7r.fsf@trenco.lwn.net> <04B897EF-DEEC-42D0-8E00-888CEEA5318E@zytor.com> <1caf74551e06ef43e4cc6829c961c1de2bbf8758.camel@HansenPartnership.com> <20260309143406.3d45e36e@gandalf.local.home> Autocrypt: addr=James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com; prefer-encrypt=mutual; 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AHBLpBdnl9SOe8ETkv6GqbZrXUED/dAbRVIT5vHP51zyYB8rAUjp3PnzxsXFG8eQaacEyKSl0DKDlgKuQ+k292LVGJhEva8z4cwg3JcrQWzbpTRskQRP624aQ7t0LKbNfXqfYT13TvZNTDdjQaCJRJ3EG8uXOszVKuc0guXunZPmmq6x1Y3bOfOezcFYoywwL3nKef+Z5sQrjG3/5NLeu+W Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable User-Agent: Evolution 3.50.3 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 On Mon, 2026-03-09 at 14:34 -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote: > On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:19:42 -0700 > James Bottomley wrote: >=20 > > I don't think LLMs will be able to come up with the necessary proof > > of separation without essentially recreating the clean room > > process, which grows cost prohibitive as the complexity of the work > > increases. >=20 > I con see one AI bot reading the original code, and then making the > prompts to pass to a second AI bot to produce the code. >=20 > That is basically exactly how clean rooms work for humans. Now the > question is, would courts agree that is a clean room? well, yes, because you can demonstrate clean room separation which is already legally acknowledged as independent invention. My argument isn't that LLMs can't do this. It's that doing it is way more expensive than simply feeding the code into a LLM and asking for independent reinvention, which is what the guy did to chardet. In fact I contend that reducing something to its API and then reconstructing it is difficult to scale (and certainly is very costly in LLM tokens) which is why we shouldn't necessarily fear it will be done to the kernel. Regards, James