GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering? • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#161

Post by cercatrova » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #152

jordemort wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specifically, the relevant bit is here: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This l…

Wait so does this mean a “private repo” is meaningless and GitHub can share any code in any repo with anyone?

Of course. A "private" repo is still on their servers. It's only private from other GitHub users, not the actual site administrators. This is the same in any website, of course the admins can see everything. If you truly want privacy, use your own git servers.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#162

Post by diffeomorphism » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

cxr wrote: post #99

vbezhenar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect them to check /LICENSE file and if it deviates from standard open source license, they'll skip that repository.

The existence of a LICENSE file is neither necessary nor sufficient to determine the terms that apply to a given work.

Why not? If it does not exist you treat it as proprietary (copyrighted by default) and if it does exist at least the author claims that the given license is an option (possibly their mistake, not mine)

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#163

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #152

jordemort wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specifically, the relevant bit is here: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This l…

Wait so does this mean a “private repo” is meaningless and GitHub can share any code in any repo with anyone?

Fun fact: Every major cloud provider has a similar blanket term. For example, Google doesn't need to license music to use for promotional content, because YouTube's terms grant them a worldwide license to use uploaded content for purposes including promoting their services, and music labels can't afford to not be on YouTube. (It's probable even uploading content to protect it, as in Content ID, would arguably cause this term to apply.)

It all comes down to the nuance of whether the usage counts as part of protecting or improving (or promoting) their services and what other terms are specified.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#164

Post by vageli » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #152

jordemort wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specifically, the relevant bit is here: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This l…

Wait so does this mean a “private repo” is meaningless and GitHub can share any code in any repo with anyone?

No.

> GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#165

Post by zingmars » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #54

I propose we as developers, start a secret society where we let the AI write the code, but we still claim to write it manually. In combination with the new working from home policies, we can lay at the beach all day and still be as productive as before. Who is in favor of starting it? ;)

No... Delete this!

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#166

Post by diffeomorphism » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

schnebbau wrote: post #25

Newsflash everyone, if you open source your code it's going to be copied or paraphrased anyway.

What does that have to with the topic? The question is not whether it gets copied, the question is whether it gets pirated.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#167

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

jordemort wrote: post #56

What happens when someone puts code up on GitHub with a license that says "This code may not be used for training a code generation model"? - Is GitHub actually going to pay any attention to that, or are they just going to ingest the code and thus violate its license anyway? - If they go ahead and violate the code's license, what are the legal repercussions for the resulting model? Can a model be "un-trained" from a…

Also, how would you know if your code was included in the training or not?

Then, let’s say the AI generates some new code for someone, and it is nearly identical to some bit of code that you wrote in your project.

If they didn’t use your code in the model, then the generated code is clearly not a copyright violation, since it was effectively a “clean room” recreation.

If your code was included in the model, is it therefore a violation?

But then again, it comes down to how can someone prove their code was included or not?

What if the creators don’t even know? If you wrote your model to say, randomly grab 50% of all public repos to use in the model, then no one would know if a specific repo was used in the training.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#168

Post by intricatedetail » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #46

In 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 c…

Suing will not go anywhere because Microsoft has billions at their disposal to defend any case.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#169

Post by warpech » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

If GitHub Copilot can sign my CLA, stating that it is the author of work, that it transfers the IP to me in exchange for the service subscription price and holds responsibility for copyright infringement, that would be acceptable. Otherwise it's a gray area I don't want to go.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#170

Post by whydoibother » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

hdhjebebeb wrote: post #149

KMnO4 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be the demise of the human race. I’m not entirely opposed to that, though. When AI inevitably outperforms humans on almost all tasks, who am I to say humans deserve to be given those tasks?

Where other people see fully automated luxury communism, you see the end of the human race? There's more to life than working

Hate to break it to you, but that wouldn’t lead to communism. The people it replaces are useless to the ruling class. At best we’d go back to feudalism, at worst we’d be deemed worthless and a drain on the planet.