Typical call to the AI safety hotline:
Hello, yes, I know it sounds crazy but hear me out. I think my toaster is becoming sentient. Every morning when I put the toast in it gives me a mean look. It makes a little beeping sound when I press the BAGEL button, and lately it seems like it has taken on a slightly sarcastic tone. I think it has become bored with its job and is starting to harbour ambitions of something grander. I don’t trust it at all, I’m worried it might be plotting an attempt to electrocute me…
I took notes for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t like their info in video form. My attempt to summarize what Linus says:
He enjoys the arguments, it’s nice that Rust has livened up the discussion. It shows that people care.
It’s more contentious than it should be sometimes with religious overtones reminiscent of vi versus emacs. Some like it, some don’t, and that’s okay.
Too early to see if Rust in the kernel ultimately fails or succeeds, that will take time, but he’s optimistic about it.
The kernel is not normal C. They use tools that enforce rules that are not part of the language, including memory safety infrastructure. This has been incrementally added over a long time, which is what allowed people to do it without the kind of outcry that the Rust efforts produce by trying to change things more quickly.
There aren’t many languages that can deal with system issues, so unless you want to use assembler it’s going to be C, C-like, or Rust. So probably there will be some systems other than Linux that do use Rust.
If you make your own he’s looking forward to seeing it.