Linus Torvalds
Software Engineer
Creator of the Linux kernel and Git, and arguably the most influential programmer alive. A famous skeptic of hype, he is nonetheless genuinely optimistic about AI as a developer tool — expecting it to catch bugs, smarten tooling, and earn a place in everyday coding.
In their words
So my approach to LLMs really has been that, hey, this is wonderful.
So I do think that LLMs are going to be a big, you call them disparagingly, like autocorrects on steroids. And I actually think that they’re way more than that. And how most people work is, we all are autocorrects on steroids to some degree. And I see that as a tool that can help us be better at what we do. But I’ve always been optimistic. The whole hopeful, what’s the word?
Making the tools smarter is not a bad thing.
I see the bugs that happen without them every day. So that may be why I’m not so worried.
Biography
Linus Torvalds (born 1969) is the Finnish-American engineer who created the Linux kernel in 1991 and later Git — two pieces of infrastructure that between them run most of the world’s servers, all of its top supercomputers, every Android phone, and the daily workflow of essentially every software developer. Few people have shaped modern computing more.
He is also a constitutional skeptic of hype, which makes his openness to AI all the more telling. Speaking about large language models, Torvalds has been pragmatic and optimistic about them as engineering tools — pointing to bug-finding as an area where they could “shine,” shrugging off fears about AI-introduced errors, and welcoming smarter tooling rather than fearing it.
That’s certainly one of the areas which I see them really being able to shine, to find the obvious stupid bugs.
His enthusiasm is deliberately measured: he “hates the hype,” has urged everyone to “wait 10 years and see where it actually goes” before the grand pronouncements, and bristles at claims that AI already writes most code. But the through-line is consistent — AI is a genuinely useful tool, and Torvalds, who has spent his life building better tools, is glad to have it.
Where they stand in the war
The opposition
Dana Terrace
Animator
Peabody Award-winning animator and creator of Disney Channel’s The Owl House who became one of animation’s most outspoken opponents of generative AI. In 2025 she urged fans to cancel Disney+ and pirate her own show in protest of the studio’s embrace of AI-generated content.
Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker
Oscar-winning director of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Pinocchio, and one of cinema’s most beloved champions of handcrafted, human-made art. In 2025 he became one of Hollywood’s most quotable opponents of generative AI, saying he would “rather die” than use it.
Kane Parsons
Director
Self-taught filmmaker who created the viral “Backrooms” horror series on YouTube as a teenager and is now directing its feature adaptation. A VFX prodigy, he is sharply critical of generative AI — saying he gets no creative enjoyment from it and would make it “disappear forever” if he could.
Ronny Chieng
Comedian
Malaysian-born comedian, actor, and senior Daily Show correspondent. In his 2026 Harvard Class Day address he turned a furious, profane riff against generative AI into a rallying cry, telling the graduating class that destroying AI is the mission of their generation.
The Indie Game Awards
Awards Ceremony
An annual indie-focused awards show produced by the team behind Six One Indie. It enforces a blanket ban on generative AI — a policy that, at its December 2025 ceremony, led it to strip Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 of its Game of the Year win hours after handing it out.
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/linus-torvalds