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GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
41–50 of 473 posts
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This feature is effectively impossible to replicate. Only Microsoft positioned itself to have: - dataset (GitHub) - tech (openai) - training (azure) - platform (vscode) I'm impressed. They did an amazing job from a corporate strategy standpoint. Also directionally things are getting interesting
The dataset is all freely available open source code, right? Just because GH hosts it doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t use it for the same purpose.
You'd have to hit rate limiting multiple times no?
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#43Attempts to litigate any license violation are going to get precisely nowhere I bet, but I find the actual license violation argument persuasive. This is an excellent example of how the AI singularity/revolution/whatever is a total distraction and that a much bigger and more serious issue is how AI is becoming so effective at turning the output of cheap/free human mental labour into capital. If AI keeps getting bette…
But the rate of product/services that machinery will produce will make that even a small tax to corporations producing everything autonomously will be enough to feed and give a quality of life to everyone with an UBI or partial time jobs. You really want to push for high productivity across all industries, even if that means sacrificing jobs in the short term, because history demonstrated after that, new and more hum…
The current state of most wealthy countries do not show any hint of any significant corporation tax. Wealth will continue to accrue in the hands of the few.
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#44Attempts to litigate any license violation are going to get precisely nowhere I bet, but I find the actual license violation argument persuasive. This is an excellent example of how the AI singularity/revolution/whatever is a total distraction and that a much bigger and more serious issue is how AI is becoming so effective at turning the output of cheap/free human mental labour into capital. If AI keeps getting bette…
But the rate of product/services that machinery will produce will make that even a small tax to corporations producing everything autonomously will be enough to feed and give a quality of life to everyone with an UBI or partial time jobs. You really want to push for high productivity across all industries, even if that means sacrificing jobs in the short term, because history demonstrated after that, new and more hum…
Have fun being a hairdresser or prostitute for the 0.01% then.
New jobs in academic fields will not emerge. Already now a significant percentage of degree holders are forced into bullshit jobs.
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#45What is more concerning is that the training kernel belongs exclusively one private company. Microsoft. It can become a massive (and unfair) competitive advantage. Furthermore, Copilot will not work with less popular languages and also prevent popular languages from evolving.
This feature is effectively impossible to replicate. Only Microsoft positioned itself to have: - dataset (GitHub) - tech (openai) - training (azure) - platform (vscode) I'm impressed. They did an amazing job from a corporate strategy standpoint. Also directionally things are getting interesting
Anyone can download the training set from GitHub.
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#46In the discussion yesterday I pointed to the case of some students suing turnitin for using their works in the turnitin database and the studemts lost [1]. I think an individual suing will not go anywhere. The way to create a precedent is someone feeding all the Harry Potter books and some additional popular books (twilight?) to GPT 3 and letting them write about some kids at a sorcerer school. The outcomes of that case would look very different IMO.
[1] https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/03/25/iparadigms-wins-t...
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#47Microsoft should just GPL CoPilot's code and model. They won't, but it would fix this problem, I think.
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#48While I think this will continue to amplify current problems around IP, aren't current applied-ML approaches to writing software the equivalent of automating the drawing of leaves on a tree? Maybe a few small branches? But the whole tree, all its roots, how it fits in to the surrounding landscape, the overall composition, the intention? If I'm wrong about that than I picked either a good or a bad time to finally learn programming. There's only so many ways you can do things in each language though. Just like in the field of music, only so many "Original" tunes. The concept of IP is incoherent, you don't own patterns (at least not at arbitrary depth), though you may be owed some form of compensation for the billions made off discovering them.
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#49This goes into one of my favorite philosophical topics: John Searle's Chinese Room. I won't go into it here, but the question of whether an AI is actually learning how to code or simply substituting information based on statistically common practices (or if there really is a difference between either) is going to be one hell of a problem for the next few decades as we start to approach fine points of what AI is and how it could be defined.
However, legally, the most recent Oracle vs. Google case has already settled a major point: APIs don't violate copyright. And as Github co-pilot is an API (A self-modifying one, but an API nonetheless), Microsoft has a good defense.
In the near-future, when we have AI-assisted reverse engineering along with Github co-pilot, then, with enough obfuscation there's nothing that can't be legally created or recreated on a computer, proprietary or not. This is simultaneously free software's greatest dream and worst nightmare.
Edit: changed Hilary Putnam to John Searle Edit 2: spelling
Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?
#50Does this mean that when I read GPL code and learn from it, I cannot use these learnings in non-GPL code?
I get it that the derivative work might be more clear in an AI setting, but basically it boils down to the same thing.