Linus Torvalds used LLM tools to decipher kernel code, found 3 more latent bugs
PointmanW · reddit · 2026-10-12
In the assoc-array-fixes Git tag notes, Linus Torvalds explains that Nils Ollrogge reported a bug in the assocarray library with a patch, but the code was too obscure to follow — so he practiced what he preaches and used modern LLM tools to make sense of it.
The LLM-assisted branch splits up large, hard-to-read functions for readability. The code was then run through a user-space test harness, which not only confirmed the reported bug but uncovered three additional bugs — all dating back to the library's very first commit in 2013.
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