The post is a screenshot of a Linux kernel mailing-list reply in which Linus Torvalds calls the idea of "don't use AI for X" rules "idiotic" and, mockingly, proposes banning compilers and text editors for kernel submissions. He writes that he expects people "to understand what they are doing," and that this has "very little to do with what tools they use." The Next Web reports the reply came on October 13 after kernel maintainers moved to drop the "Assisted-by" tag that had asked contributors to disclose AI coding tools.

The top replies agree that quality work should be accepted regardless of where it came from, while others stress the other half of his message: contributors must understand their code. Several worry that AI makes it easy to flood open-source projects with low-quality pull requests that take maintainers time to sift. About 3,100 upvotes in a 329,000-member community.