Greg Kroah-Hartman appears to be running AI-assisted fuzzing on the kernel. Don't outrage yet, as this may not be a bad thing.

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Greg Kroah-Hartman (GKH), the Linux stable kernel maintainer, has been quietly running an AI-assisted fuzzing tool on the Linux kernel in a branch called 'clanker'. The fuzzer identified real bugs in ksmbd/SMB code, including an EaNameLength validation gap, a missing bounds check, and a mechToken memory leak. GKH explicitly asked reviewers to verify the patches rather than trust them blindly. The branch has since expanded to cover USB, HID, WiFi, LoongArch, and networking subsystems. Linus Torvalds has also expressed interest in AI for maintenance, patch checking, and code review rather than code generation. The approach keeps humans in the loop — AI surfaces potential bugs, but experienced kernel developers write and own the fixes, mirroring LLVM's 'human in the loop' AI policy.

Is a Clanker Being Used to Carry Out AI Fuzzing in the Linux Kernel?