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I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

thelig.ht

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Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#311

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

kuon wrote: post #127

I've given thousands of hours to open source projects, I really think open source is a pillar of modern society. So you would think I am all for something like copilot, but no. At first I thought this was a great feature, because easier access to code, but after some reflection, I am also very skeptical. I am able to make my code open source, because I can make a living out of it, and I have a lot of open source code…

> I am able to make my code open source, because I can make a living out of it, and I have a lot of open source code that I love to share for things like education or private stuff, but if you want to use it for something real, you need to hire me. If you can suck all the code without even I noticing it, that's not fair.

If you license your software such that I can do whatever I want with it, then I can do whatever I want with it. I don't see how you can then go on to claim it isn't fair if I'm using as you allow.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#312

Post by chrisseaton »

dahart wrote: post #308
chrisseaton wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... but they didn't say it was the law that got you excluded from working on some projects from reading copyright code. It's corporate policy that does that - it's not a law but they do it based on who owns the copyright. Not everything that impacts you is a law. They said > Reading some copyrighted code can have you entirely excluded from some jobs And they're right. It's because of corporate policies. They neve…

> They never say it was because of a law - you imagined that out of nothing. @jcelerier flatly contradicted the statement that copyright doesn’t prevent you from reading something. You’re right that @jceleier didn’t say their example was law, that’s because the example is a straw man in the context of what @lacker wrote.

Are you editing your comments out after they're been replied to? That's really poor form.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#313

Post by Karrot_Kream »

nilshauk wrote: post #249

I used to admire GitHub for being a fully bootstrapped company and free to pursue a path in the world they believed in as a company. Since the Microsoft acquisition it’s becoming painfully obvious how unhealthily centralized the dev world has become, and they seem to strive to become ever more entrenched in the name of maximizing shareholder value. I only have a small amount of open source projects on GH but I intend…

What does this have to do with Copilot?

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#314

Post by tomtheelder »

breck wrote: post #193

It’s time to abolish copyright ( http://www.breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendmen... ). It absolutely makes no sense—unless your rich and don’t care about the progress of the arts and sciences. You can spin your wheels all you want but going from simple first principles it is fundamentally flawed. If you believe ideas can be property, then you believe people can be property.

> If you believe ideas can be property, then you believe people can be property.

Can you defend that? I generally think copyright isn't a great idea as it exists, but this statement feels extremely dubious at best.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#315

Post by TheRealPomax »

jcelerier wrote: post #61
lacker wrote: post #34

I thought this was a pretty good thread (by an ex-Wikipedia lawyer) on Twitter about the IP meaning of Copilot. https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1410242882523459585... And this is a longer article about how IP and AI interact: https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-101-issue-2/copyright... I am not a lawyer, but I am capable of summarizing the thoughts of lawyers, so my take is that in general, fair use allow…

> As a human, I am allowed to read copyrighted code and learn from it. Of course not. Reading some copyrighted code can have you entirely excluded from some jobs - you can't become a wine contributor if it can be shown you ever read Windows source code and most likely conversely. Likewise, you can't ever write GPL VST 2 audio plug-ins if you ever had access to the official Steinberg VST2 SDK. Etc etc... Did people fo…

I don't believe you on this in the slightest. This sounds like you making up an argument, so cite sources if you want people to believe your claims.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#316

Post by dang »

Recent and related:

Copilot regurgitating Quake code, including sweary comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287 - July 2021 (625 comments)

GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687450 - June 2021 (449 comments)

Also ongoing, and more or less a duplicate of this one:

GitHub scraped your code. And they plan to charge you - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724008 - July 2021 (148 comments)

Original thread:

GitHub Copilot - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27676266 - June 2021 (1255 comments)

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#317

Post by temac »

lacker wrote: post #34

I thought this was a pretty good thread (by an ex-Wikipedia lawyer) on Twitter about the IP meaning of Copilot. https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1410242882523459585... And this is a longer article about how IP and AI interact: https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-101-issue-2/copyright... I am not a lawyer, but I am capable of summarizing the thoughts of lawyers, so my take is that in general, fair use allow…

I will completely follow that opinion the day MS includes the whole Windows codebase into the training of copilot.

Until then, it's basically "GPL" (and other licences) laundering with one-sided excuses.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#319

Post by soheil »

To address a lot of the negativity around copyright fair-use, Copilot should have probably adopted something like Stackoverflow's model where contributors get rewarded by points. In this case the repo that the code used by Copilot came from would get a new type of star rating and the more people used it Copilot would assign more stars. Fractional stars would be awarded depending on what fraction of each code snippet Copilot thinks came from a specific repo...

It could maybe at some point send rewards in form of donations etc. from Copilot users, similar to Sponsored repos.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#320

Post by robbedpeter »

saurik wrote: post #87
crazygringo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what GP is saying. In general, you're absolutely allowed to learn programming techniques from anywhere . You can contribute software almost anywhere even if you've read Windows source code. Re-using everything you've learned, in your own creative creation, is part of fair use. Your example is the very specific scenario where you're attempting to replicate an entire program, API, etc., to identical specific…

This model doesn't learn and abstract: it just pattern matches and replicates; that's why it was shown exactly replicating regions of code--long enough to not be "de minimis" and recognizable enough to include the comments--that happen to be popular... which would be fine, as long as the license on said code were also being replicated. It just isn't reasonable to try to pretend Copilot--or GPT-3 in general--is some k…

Transformers do learn and abstract. Not as well as humans, but for whatever definitive of innovation or creativity you wanna run with, these gpt models have it. It's not magic, it's math, but these programs are approximating the human function of media synthesis across narrowly limited domains.

These aren't your crazy uncle's Markov chain chatbots. They're sophisticated bayesian models trained to approximate the functions that produced the content used in training.

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