Dan Carpenter wrote: [..] > If tools permit you to generate a contribution automatically, expect > additional scrutiny in proportion to how much of it was generated. > > Every kernel patch needs careful review from multiple people. Please, > don't start the public review process until after you have carefully > reviewed the patches yourself. If you don't have the necessary > expertise to review kernel code, consider asking for help first before > sending them to the main list.
Note, I do not want additional changes to this document, my Reviewed-by still stands with this version, it is good, ship it. However, I do want to endorse this sentiment as uniquely capturing a truism of kernel development that perhaps belongs in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst. It captures it in a way that avoids the conceit of the "slop is special" argument. Contributions are accepted in large part based in trust in the author. So much so that even long time contributors self censor, self mistrust, based on the adage "debugging is harder than developing, if you develop at the limits of your cleverness you will not be able to debug the result." Tools potentially allow you to develop beyond the limits of your own cleverness which implicates the result as "undebuggable" and unmaintainable. So a simple rule of "generally you should be able to demonstrate the ability to substantively review a contribution of similar complexity before expecting the kernel community to engage in earnest" mitigates the asymmetric threat of AI contributions *and* contributors that have not built-up enough trust capital with their upstream maintainer.
