He rejected rules that would tell contributors not to use AI for particular work, calling that approach “UTTERLY STUPID.”
Torvalds compared an AI ban to barring contributors from using compilers or text editors. He said his expectation is that contributors do their best and understand what they submit; in his view, that understanding has little to do with which tools they use.
The message appeared in the thread “docs: remove Assisted-by references.” The underlying patch concerns removal of the Assisted-by tag requirement from kernel documentation and checkpatch.
The email is a public statement by Torvalds in that discussion. It does not by itself record adoption of a new formal Linux kernel policy, create an approval path for AI-generated patches, or change the review requirements for submitted code.