AI Is Now a Linux Kernel Assistant, Helping Maintainers Backport Patches

Generative AI is now assisting in selecting patches for backporting into the stable branches of Linux, including long-term support (LTS) releases. Sasha Levin, the LTS maintainer, recently advanced updates to kernel documentation regarding the permissible use of AI assistants, and judging from his mailing list posts, he has begun leveraging large language models (LLMs) to more efficiently determine which changes should be carried over into supported releases.

Ordinarily, commit authors themselves flag fixes for backporting using the CC: stable tag, ensuring that such patches automatically fall within the scope of stable branch maintainers. Yet many important fixes lack this designation—precisely where Levin now employs models. Given the heavy workload of maintaining the upstream kernel, AI offers a way to reduce oversight and ensure that meaningful fixes are not overlooked for inclusion in current stable and LTS releases.

Levin, who works at NVIDIA as a “Linux kernel hacker” while simultaneously curating the LTS trees, has begun attaching clearly model-generated explanatory notes to his backport submissions this week. In one message, a block appeared:

LLM Generated explanations, may be completely bogus:

Now I have a better understanding. Let me analyze the commit to determine if it should be backported:

**Backport Status: YES**

## Extensive Explanation:

This commit should be backported to stable kernel trees for the following reasons:
...

The model then enumerated its rationale: the fix resolves a user-visible issue, closes a regression, has a limited scope of impact with minimal risk of side effects, and pertains to specific hardware, making it a suitable candidate for the stable series. Similar AI-generated commentary has accompanied other patches proposed for backporting throughout the week.

It remains too early to gauge how deeply AI will embed itself into the kernel maintenance process. Yet already, models are helping surface candidate patches in cases where commit authors omitted the CC: stable tag and maintainers lack the time to manually inspect every change. The final judgment, as before, rests firmly with human maintainers, while LLMs emerge as another tool in the Linux developer’s arsenal.