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All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

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Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#661

Post by qayxc »

skinkestek wrote: post #651
qayxc wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today copilot does what it does. It's also not a commercially released product yet, but a technical preview, so uncovering and addressing issues like that is exactly what pre-release versions are for. I'd say it succeeded greatly in sparking a discussion about these issues.

If I release a piece of software today that install Microsoft products but stripped of all attributions and without paying any licenses, ... will you defend it just because I claim it is a tech preview?

> ... will you defend it just because I claim it is a tech preview?

That's a straw man argument and you know it.

Code snippets are in no way shape or form comparable to entire software products and CoPilot neither installs anything nor is its intention to knowingly violate licences or copyright law.

Disingenuous straw manning like this doesn't help the discussion and only serves to distract from actual issues.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#662

Post by shoo_pl »

sgrove wrote: post #595
fleddr wrote: post #551

To me, the particular use case and whether it is fair use or not, is of minor interest. A far more pressing matter is at hand: AI centralization and monopolization. Take Google as an example, running Google Photos for free for several years. And now that this has sucked in a trillion photos, the AI job is done, and they likely have the best image recognition AI in existence. Which is of course still peanuts compared…

I believe this is actually powered by OpenAI, which while large (now), is nowhere near the behemoth that Microsoft or Google is. This suggests that seeing the future a bit ahead of the rest of the world, and then assembling a motivated all-star team is (perhaps in the short term at least) one way of out-competing the "super AI" of the giants.

Not only Microsoft basically bough OpenAI a couple of years ago, they also made the GPT-3 closed thing that you can only access via API.

Don't let the name fool you, OpenAI is anything but Open.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#663

Post by jkaplowitz »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #252
AaronFriel wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

The world is global. That's a US court ruling from one court of appeals. Most countries have narrower fair use rights than the US. Even if Copilot would fall within that legal precedent (far from guaranteed), a legal challenge in any jurisdiction worldwide outside the US states covered by that particular court of appeals, or which reaches the US Supreme Court, or which goes through the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal…

> law feel layman

What a weird autocorrect typo. This should have read "law geek layman." (And it initially autocorrected again as I was typing this paragraph.)

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#664

Post by eloisius »

devetec wrote: post #622
mqus wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Why not find some leaked windows/office source code and try to train a model to reconstruct microsoft software, then open source it? This surely must be legal, they're doing it themselves after all :D (Maybe bring oracle into this :D)

It would be legal! But it wouldn't "reconstruct" Microsoft software. The way Copilot works is just that, a copilot. It's not the pilot. It's your own fault for what you do with it, it's just giving you some help along the way.

So long as the "copilot" is a black box that no one can inspect, how is it substantially different than me creating a website with a link to download a licensing-stripped version of Microsoft office, but it only gives you a verbatim copy 1/10 times you try it?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#665

Post by CapriciousCptl »

AaronFriel wrote: post #193
keonix wrote: post #185

If the training set contains verbatim (A)GPL code does this mean that Copilot also should be distributed by Microsoft under GPL? Because without it Copilot (as it is distributed by Microsoft) couldn't be built, wouldn't it make it a derivative work of GPL'd code (and obviously every other license)? I see a lot of people comparing human learning to machine learning in the comments, but there is a huge difference - we…

No, see Authors Guild v. Google. Even without a license or permission, fair use permits the mass scanning of books, the storage of the content of those books, and rendering verbatim snippets of those books. The Google Books site is not a derivative work of the millions of authors they copied from, and if they did copy any coincidentally GPL, AGPL, or creative commons copyleft work, the fair use exception applies befo…

Does intent not matter? Pasting code for explanatory reasons and citing the source seems different than silently incorporating it directly into a commercial work product.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#666

Post by toxik »

habitue wrote: post #353

I am really confused by HN's response to copilot. It seems like before the twitter thread on it went viral, the only people who cared about programmers copying (verbatim!) short snippets of code like this would be lawyers and executives. Suddenly everyone is coming out of the woodworks as copyright maximalists? I know HN loves a good "well actually" and Microsoft is always suspect, but let's leave the idea of code la…

Is it really confusing? It's a rich company using the fruits of our labor, provided free TO OTHER DEVELOPERS. I have never okayed "use my code to train AIs that nobody else could". It's backhanded and unfair.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#667

Post by swiley »

habitue wrote: post #353

I am really confused by HN's response to copilot. It seems like before the twitter thread on it went viral, the only people who cared about programmers copying (verbatim!) short snippets of code like this would be lawyers and executives. Suddenly everyone is coming out of the woodworks as copyright maximalists? I know HN loves a good "well actually" and Microsoft is always suspect, but let's leave the idea of code la…

Copyright defends us from some of the abuse by large corporations in the form of the GPL.

Want Linux to run on your thing? You must publish driver source then or you're violating copyright law. This was less a big deal before device vendors ratcheted the pathological behavior up to 11 with smartphones and that's why far more people seem to react far more strongly now.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#668

Post by skinkestek »

qayxc wrote: post #661
skinkestek wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I release a piece of software today that install Microsoft products but stripped of all attributions and without paying any licenses, ... will you defend it just because I claim it is a tech preview?

> ... will you defend it just because I claim it is a tech preview? That's a straw man argument and you know it. Code snippets are in no way shape or form comparable to entire software products and CoPilot neither installs anything nor is its intention to knowingly violate licences or copyright law. Disingenuous straw manning like this doesn't help the discussion and only serves to distract from actual issues.

> That's a straw man argument and you know it.

It is absolutely not in my opinion and that particular idea did not cross my mind at all so the idea that I knew it is patently double false.

But let me try to be constructive here and be even more precise:

Would it be OK if I launched a tech preview of my AI poem writer companion that would copy lines but also complete stanzas from famous poets, rock bands and singer-songwriters?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#669

Post by sdevonoes »

fleddr wrote: post #551

To me, the particular use case and whether it is fair use or not, is of minor interest. A far more pressing matter is at hand: AI centralization and monopolization. Take Google as an example, running Google Photos for free for several years. And now that this has sucked in a trillion photos, the AI job is done, and they likely have the best image recognition AI in existence. Which is of course still peanuts compared…

We can decide to stop using some (or most of) Google services. It's hard, but it's not that they are pointing us with a gun in order to use their services, right? Sure, for the cases when one cannot escape Google, use it; but for the rest of scenarios? It's all about tradeoffs: Can I live without YouTube? Can I live with DuckDuckGo (Google Search is "better" but I don't mind)? etc.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#670

Post by palunon »

fragileone wrote: post #122
jensensbutton wrote: post #98

Wouldn't it be the people publishing code written with Copilot that (potentially) violate any licenses? It doesn't seem to be that the tool violates anything, though it may put the _user_ at risk of violating something. Like, don't use it if you're worried about violating licenses, but I don't see how Microsoft could get in trouble for the tool. It doesn't write and publish code by itself.

Microsoft are violating the licenses already when they initially show you the generated code without attribution and ignoring other license restrictions. How you use it yourself is separate from that.

Unless that falls under their Terms of services license grant, which would bypass the code public license...
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