GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by defasdefbe » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

ianbutler wrote: post #82

thorum wrote: post #29

What might be going on here is that Copilot pulls code it thinks may be relevant from other files in your VS Code project. You have the original code open in another tab, so Copilot uses it as a reference example. For evidence, see the generated comment under the Copilot completion: "Compare this snippet from Untitled-1.cpp" - that's the AI accidentally repeating the prompt it was given by Copilot.

I just tested it myself, and I most certainly do not have his source open, and it reproduced his code verbatim with just the function header in a random test c file I created in the middle of a rust project I'm working on.

Do you have Public Code Suggestions disabled? I tried in an empty editor and it wouldn't do it.

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

#212

Post by psychphysic » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #186

psychphysic wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Those are effectively cases of cryptomnesia[0]. Part and parcel of learning. If you don't want broad access your work, don't upload it to a public repository. It's very simple. Good on you for recognising that you don't agree with what GitHub looks at data in public repos, but it's not their problem. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia

> Those are effectively cases of cryptomnesia. Disagree, outputting training data as-is is not cryptomnesia. This is not Copilot's first case. It also reproduced ID software's fast inverse square root function as-is, including its comments, but without its license. > If you don't want broad access your work, don't upload it to a public repository. It's very simple. This is actually both funny and absurd. This is why…

It's funny to say id's fast inverse square root. Conway certainly didn't come up with the algorithm or the magic number.

But your reasoning boils down to I don't like it so it mustn't be that way. That's never been necessarily true.

At any rate piracy is rampant so clearly a large body of people don't think even a direct copies is morally wrong. Let alone something similar.

You're acting as though there are constant won and lost cases over plagiarism. Ed Sheeran seems to defend his work weekly. Every case that goes to court means reasonable minds differ on the interpretation of plagiarism legally.

So what's your point?

Because it seems the main thrust of your argument is I should argue with Microsoft instead (*who own GitHub lol*)? That's all you got to hold back the tide of AI? An appeal to authority?

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

#213

Post by CapsAdmin » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #184

CapsAdmin wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Precisely. Would it be okay for me to publish some code as GPL because my buddy gave it to me and promised that it was totally legit and I could use it and it definitely wasn't copy-pasted from one of the Windows source leaks? But where do you draw the line? What if you accidentally came up with the same or similar solution to something in windows? The code might not be from your friend either, it could be from N s…

> But where do you draw the line? What if you accidentally came up with the same or similar solution to something in windows? Yes, I agree that it's unclear how to deal with that in the general case at scale. Although cases like OP make me think that we could maybe worry about the grey area after we've dealt with the blatant copies. > The code might not be from your friend either, it could be from N steps of copy pas…

> Yes, I agree that it's unclear how to deal with that in the general case at scale. Although cases like OP make me think that we could maybe worry about the grey area after we've dealt with the blatant copies.

The way I see copilot's output is that it's already in the grey zone. As with other models like this there are no snippets in the model. I can for example generate similar looking code to the cs_transpose function in Lua if I nudge it a bit. To me this seems equivalent of someone remembering exactly how a function works (to some extent..) and being able to write it in whatever language without copy pasting.

So the output as far as I understand is very grey. Maybe there's something in the training part that can be discussed, but as I mentioned earlier I'm not sure what else you can do other than check the license of some code or avoid creating copilot in the first place.

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

#214

Post by jzb » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #202

rtkwe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think copilot is a clearer copyright violation than any of the stable diffusion projects though because code has a much narrower band of expression than images. It's really easy to look at the output of CoPilot and match it back to the original source and say these are the same. With stable diffusion it's much closer to someone remixing and aping the images than it is reproducing originals. I haven't been following…

I think the is exacty the gap the gp is mentionning: to a trained artist it is clear as water that the original image has been lifted wholesale, even if for instance the colors are adjusted here and there. You put it as a remix, but remixes are credited and expressed as such.

I haven’t seen any side by sides that seem like a lift. Any examples?

I don’t see Midjourney (et al) as remixes, myself. More like “inspired by.”

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

#215

Post by epolanski » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

ghoward wrote: post #27

acoustics wrote: post #6

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 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…

What makes them bad?

I am against Copilot because Microsoft is training the models with public data disregarding copyright (also, doesn't include it's own code).

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

#216

Post by makeitdouble » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

alxlaz wrote: post #72

insanitybit wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dev…

> That can't possibly be a valid claim, right? It's not, but good luck talking to a human at Youtube when the video gets taken down. > Again, that doesn't sound like a valid suit. Surely she would win? Assuming she could afford the lawyer, and that she lives through the stress and occasional mistreatment by the authority, yes, probably. Both are big ifs, though.

> Assuming she could afford the lawyer, and that she lives through the stress and occasional mistreatment by the authority,

To add to that, there is provisions to lock her out of pushing new videos to the platform if the number of unresolved copyright claims passes some low number (3?).

So she loses new revenue until her claims prevail, and of course the entity which the claim is made for knows that and has no incentive to help her (don't they even get the monetization from her videos in the meantime ?)

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

#217

Post by ghoward » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #215

ghoward wrote: 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…

What makes them bad? I am against Copilot because Microsoft is training the models with public data disregarding copyright (also, doesn't include it's own code).

Because they centralize control, as I said in [1].

Put another way, AI's are tools that give more power to already powerful entities.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33227303

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

#218

Post by Aeolun » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

tpxl wrote: post #16

acoustics wrote: post #6

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,…

Diffusion of responsibility. When Joe rando plays his song, it’s easy to see the offender and do something about it.

When it’s a faceless mass of 100k employees…? Not so much.

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

#219

Post by omnimus » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #202

rtkwe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think copilot is a clearer copyright violation than any of the stable diffusion projects though because code has a much narrower band of expression than images. It's really easy to look at the output of CoPilot and match it back to the original source and say these are the same. With stable diffusion it's much closer to someone remixing and aping the images than it is reproducing originals. I haven't been following…

I think the is exacty the gap the gp is mentionning: to a trained artist it is clear as water that the original image has been lifted wholesale, even if for instance the colors are adjusted here and there. You put it as a remix, but remixes are credited and expressed as such.

Exactly to a programmer copilot is clear violation, to a writer gpt-3 is clear violation, to an artist dalle-2 is clear violation. The artist might love copilot, the writer might love dalle, the programmer might love gpt-3.

Its all the same they just dont realize this.

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

#220

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

deepspace wrote: post #140

This shows how copyright is all screwed up. Let's say the code in question is based on a published algorithm, maybe Yuster and Zwick, (I did not check). What exactly gives Davis a better claim to the copyright than the inventors of the algorithm? Yes, I know software is copyrightable while algorithms are not, but it is not at all clear to my why that should be the case. The effort of translating an algorithm into cod…

True, copyright is screwed up and completely incompatible with the 21st century. We should abolish it so that these silly questions of data ownership become irrelevant.

However, until that happens, Microsoft and GitHub cannot get away with blatant copyright infringement like this. No one is interested in their poor excuses either. People get sued and DMCA'd out of existence for far lesser offenses, yet Microsoft gets away with violating the license of every free software and open source project out there? That's fucked up.