No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Vashlex

Vashlex — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 19:34:54 GMT

@AlexsandraSmart@mastodon.nz Intersting study - I need to read the details later, what will be interesting is how good you need to be at coding to make an AI be more useful. What I experience is that less good developers also tend to be less good with AI. So in my personal view the developer skills should not be neglected. It is just what I assume will happen, because companies today want just to get things done and prefer piling up tech debt and handle the outfall later.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - AlexsandraSmart

AlexsandraSmart — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:43:02 GMT

@alex Here's a study some academics did. They asked people "How much faster can you work while using an LLM" and then they measured how much faster the programmers were actually working. Programmers felt like they were speeding up, but were actually slowing down.

https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/

A company will try to save money by using LLMs, but I don't know of any real example where they actually saved. Usually they just lower code quality and introduce "technical dept" that hides costs in the future.

A good compiler can save time. No point learning byte code or assembly, when high level languages exist.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Vashlex

Vashlex — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:40:15 GMT

@half@makertube.net Maybe I was a bit "pessimistic" - your arguments are correct. But will it matter to all developers? My take is that there will be less programmers being capable to read and write code. It will be a skill necessary for some but not for all. This new profession might not be a programmer or developer, rather a "software builder" who knows just enough about technology to not produce too much of slop.

Note that this is not what I want to happen, it is just what I assume, based on what I see in the industry and on my personal experiments and the way previous technological revolutions worked out and some fantasy. 😉

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Vashlex

Vashlex — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:23:59 GMT

@AlexsandraSmart@mastodon.nz I think you are not wrong, but the current models already can work on a local machine and achieve some good results. So while making them better will be harder I agree, but I would not call all of it hype. There is a hype, yes, but for economic reasons the companies will and already do adopt LLM-programming. I see it every day at work, and it will likely not go away, even if today is the climax, it is more useful than a default coder, even if it doubles the price without improving I guess.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Half

Half — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 13:40:39 GMT

@alex@eloquer.de Yes it matters for many reasons. First, neuronal networks degenerate without new input. And once they are trained on 99% LLM output, it just takes 10 generations to get garbage out on the level of a child's first words. That is especially true if future models are bound to one or two companies, because nobody else can pay the costs of development or the hardware to run on. That also causes heavily democratic issues. Furthermore the models will be manipulated more and more over time -> enshittification. How can you be sure that it creates the program you want without build-in tracking? And do we have 100% green energy in 50 years (which we require much earlier) or is LLM one of the reasons we could not reach it? In best case it is a bet that "everything will just go right", but the experience in tech with super scaled companies is more that everything will go wrong that could go wrong. What if one of the companies becomes so big, that one or two produce 95% of all software in the world via LLM? It is a highly political topic, not just for "is LLM output still FOSS compatible or not?" (which is not as far as the LLM itself is not 100% FOSS, which is far more than "open weight").

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Wachoperro

Wachoperro — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:47:49 GMT

@thibaultmol @thelinuxexperiment wow, nate just let the original message, only adding a "They made me say this instead" disclaimer?

Also no mention of the apologetics from the KDE account, which is what stirred most of the backlash on fedi

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Thibaultmol 🌈

Thibaultmol 🌈 — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 06:30:44 GMT

@wachoperro @thelinuxexperiment feels like an overreaction. Lots of miscommunications happened around all that stuff this week

https://rabbitictranslator.com/current-situation-faq/ https://pointieststick.com/2026/09/23/kde-and-ai-and-you-and-me/ These clear a lot up

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Wachoperro

Wachoperro — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:58:22 GMT

@thelinuxexperiment But is KDE turning into a Nazi desktop? (Read: coming mask off)

https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/117322654185564343

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - AlexsandraSmart

AlexsandraSmart — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:23:50 GMT

@alex the models do not keep getting better. The law of diminishing returns applies; that means every improvement is harder than the one before. The companies that sell the LLMs use many tricks to make them seem miraculous, but it's all hype, or worse.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Vashlex

Vashlex — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:33:07 GMT

I compare the AI usage to digital photography: where a professional photographer learned how to develop a photo years ago, I assume this is just theoretical knowledge toady. Probably you will learn it in some kind of education but maybe 1 of 100 or even less will do so in practice today. Code might go a similar way - and my question is, whether it is important that humans understand code in a way they do today? In 50 years from now only 1 of 100 developers might be capable to write code, some more might be able to actually read it. But will it matter? Is it really necessary to write code by yourself if the machine eventually is better in most coding disciplines? If the models keep on getting better at coding, my assumption is: yes. Coding is an art not worth investing anymore because it is slow and imprecisecompared to anything what an AI agent will be capable of in the next decades.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Marián Kyral

Marián Kyral — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:23:30 GMT

@jmax @thelinuxexperiment

You should watch it.

Main focus of proposal was make clear that crap AI slop code will be not accepted.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - Phil

Phil — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 13:17:36 GMT

@jmax @thelinuxexperiment Believe it or not , that is exactly what the video discusses, namely how the new guideline made it a point that new code needs to be on the same level (and thus indistinguishable) as before and what the options and the way he thinks this is heading.

No, KDE isn't turning into an AI desktop - John Maxwell

John Maxwell — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:44:34 GMT

@thelinuxexperiment Thanks for the straw-man headline.

How about you focus on the actual problem (AI generated crap code) instead of making things up to whitewash the bad actions of KDE's so-called leadership?