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GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

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Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#42
post #16

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

When Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube. When Jane Rando uses devtools to check a website source code she gets sued. When Microsoft steals all code on their platform and sells it, they get lauded. When "Open" AI steals thousands of copyrighted images and sells them, they get lauded. I am skeptical of imaginary property myself, but fuck this one set of rules for the poor,…

> one set of rules for the poor, another set of rules for the masses.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

—Composer Frank Wilhoit[1]

[1]: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#44

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

This talking point seems to come up often, but since it's basically saying that people are hypocrites I think it is a bad faith thing to say without reasonable proof that it's not a fringe opinion (or completely invented).

For what it's worth, the people I know who are opposed to this sort of "useful tool" don't discriminate by profession.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#45

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

An accusation of hypocrisy is not an argument; at least not a relevant one.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#46
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think sadly it's just people being protective, the technology is interesting so if it doesn't hit their line of work, it's fantastic, if it does, then it's terrible. There is no arguing against it though, you can't stop it, all this stuff is coming eventually to all of these areas, might as well try and find ways to use the oppurutinies while you can while some of this is still new.

I mean we definitely can stop it. Laws are a pretty strong deterrent.

What would the law do? Forbid automatic data collection and/or indexing and further use without explicit copyright holder agreement? That would essentially ban the whole internet as we know it, not saying that would be bad, but this is never going to happen, too much accumulated momentum in the opposite direction.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#47
post #30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes beyond code. Also photos, art, text, etc. Be careful what you wish for. Whether you like it or not, with a stroke of a pen Congress or the Supreme Court in the US could probably wipe out the legal use of a huge amount of the training data used for ML.

Good! Large corporations shouldn’t be able to profit off of other people’s data without consent or compensation.

Great! I assume you believe all search engines should be illegal then?

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#48
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a programmer who has written extensively on my blog and HN against Copilot. I am also not a hypocrite; I do not like DALL-E or Stable Diffusion either. As a sibling comment implies, these AI tools give more power to people who control data, i.e., big companies or wealthy people, while at the same time, they take power away from individuals. Copilot is bad for society. DALL-E and Stable Diffusion are bad for soci…

I’m a programmer and a songwriter and I am not worried about these tools and I don’t think they are bad for society. What did the photograph do to the portrait artist? What did the recording do to the live musician? Here’s some highfalutin art theory on the matter, from almost a hundred years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

But this isn’t like photography and portrait artistry. This is more like a wealthy person stealing your entire art catalog, laundering it in some fancy way, and then claiming they are the original creator. Stable Diffusion has literally been used to create new art by screenshotting someone’s live-streamed art creation process as the seed. While creating derivative work has always been considered art(such as deletion poetry and collage), it’s extremely uncommon and blasé to never attribute the original(s).

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#49

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

I think the distinction is that only one of those classes tends to produce exact copies of work. Programmers get very upset at DALL-E and Stable Diffusion producing exact (and near-exact) copies of artwork too. In contrast to exact copying, production of imitations (not exact copies, but "X in the style of Y") is something that artists have been doing for centuries, and is widely thought of as part of arts education.

For some reason, code seems to lend itself to exact copying by AIs (and also some humans) rather than comprehension and imitation.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#50
post #16

I’ve noticed that people tend to disapprove of AI trained on their profession’s data, but are usually indifferent or positive about other applications of AI. For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged b…

When Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube. When Jane Rando uses devtools to check a website source code she gets sued. When Microsoft steals all code on their platform and sells it, they get lauded. When "Open" AI steals thousands of copyrighted images and sells them, they get lauded. I am skeptical of imaginary property myself, but fuck this one set of rules for the poor,…

> Joe Rando plays a song from 1640 on a violin he gets a copyright claim on Youtube

That can't possibly be a valid claim, right? AFAIK copyright is "gone" after the original author dies + ~70 years. Before fairly recently it was even shorter. Something from 1640 surely can't be claimed under copyright protection. There are much more recent changes where that might not be the case, but 1640?

> When Jane Rando uses devtools to check a website source code she gets sued.

Again, that doesn't sound like a valid suit. Surely she would win? In the few cases I've heard of where suits like this are brought against someone they've easily won them.

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