GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

> If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers.

From the article:

> “Dude, it’s cool. I took SFC’s advice and moved my code off GitHub.” So did I. Guess what? It doesn’t mat­ter. By claim­ing that AI train­ing is fair use, Microsoft is con­struct­ing a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for train­ing on pub­lic code any­where on the inter­net, not just GitHub.

And:

> when it comes for their own field, they are suddenly very worried

From the article:

> First, the objec­tion here is not to AI-assisted cod­ing tools gen­er­ally, but to Microsoft’s spe­cific choices with Copi­lot. We can eas­ily imag­ine a ver­sion of Copi­lot that’s friend­lier to open-source devel­op­ers—for instance, where par­tic­i­pa­tion is vol­un­tary, or where coders are paid to con­tribute to the train­ing cor­pus. Despite its pro­fessed love for open source, Microsoft chose none of these options. Sec­ond, if you find Copi­lot valu­able, it’s largely because of the qual­ity of the under­ly­ing open-source train­ing data. As Copi­lot sucks the life from open-source projects, the prox­i­mate effect will be to make Copi­lot ever worse—a spi­ral­ing ouroboros of garbage code.

He wrote the book on it. https://practicaltypography.com/

Many courts, especially those in the Northern District of California (where a case would likely end up litigated), are very proficient and literate about software and copyright law. See Judge William Alsup’s cases if you want to see some examples that illustrate the court’s competence. And these judges frequently have technical consultants on staff to assist with technological issues.

One issue I see with Copilot is that they get free access to all open-source data on GitHub, but using GitHub APIs to download the data yourself isn't possible (rate limiting). This is an unfair advantage. Copilot is not only making money off of open-source, they are making money off of open-source in a way others can't.

I would love to see a lawsuit which requires GitHub to provide their full Copilot dataset.

> As Copi­lot sucks the life from open-source projects, the prox­i­mate effect will be to make Copi­lot ever worse—a spi­ral­ing ouroboros of garbage code.

If I was writing this website, I would delete this sentence, because it is actually really idiotic.

1. This is an opinionated statement, except that there's nothing backing this opinion. This is fearmongering, that GitHub Copilot will get worse unless we sue Microsoft.

2. Lawsuits are not about concerns about a product's creator potentially damaging their own product. Lawyers suing Microsoft don't get a "we're protecting Microsoft from Microsoft's own bad decisions!"

The argument, completely unfounded, is that GitHub Copilot will undermine... GitHub Copilot. So, if you like GitHub Copilot, you should also be on board with suing Microsoft, so that we don't damage GitHub Copilot. What??? Good luck proving that line of argument in a court - you'd get laughed out of the room. Courts don't react well to hazy predictions about mayhem, from the suing lawyers, that have no historical facts to base them on.