Maybe MSFT should have one instance of Copilot for each common license, and then the user gets to pick which licenses they want to deal with when using Copilot. If you're writing code for a BSD-licensed codebase, you might accept Copilot trained on BSD- and MIT-licensed code, as well as any other license that's compatible with BSD. If you're writing code for a proprietary codebase you might want to exclude Copilot trained on any copyleft licenses. And so on.
GitHub Copilot investigation
381–390 of 1001 posts
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#382What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? Where you have to opt into models or can opt out (and many wind up doing so)? OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield w…
>OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield where you must ensure you properly attribute your model outputs, only train on opt-in data, etc, etc. Surely no one really thinks that a court case against Microsoft/OpenAI (even if they lose) would stop CoPilot?
I don't fucking care, I'm not in the business of competing with OpenAI or whatever. If you want to launch and AI startup but you can't that's your fucking problem, not mine. I just don't want them violating the licenses of the open-source programs I have created.
> "look I prompted CoPilot for this piece of code that I already knew about and it spit it right out" (that's not how it's going to be used in practice).
It proves that copilot has the capacity to copy existing code without fulfilling the requirements of the license. I don't care if it's "cherrypicked", this shouldn't happen under any circumstances.
> I wish the conversations around generative AI could be...just better.
I wish that these people making all these complicated language-comprehension machine-learning systems could read the fucking license statement at the top of the file and copy that license statement along with the code. this ought to be a solvable problem. I'm pretty sure i could write a bash script that does it if M$ is looking to hire.
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#383What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? Where you have to opt into models or can opt out (and many wind up doing so)? OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield w…
> What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? A better future to me. I don't want pictures of my face training ML models, nor do I want my art, or my code. I don't want my face to be more recognizable to AI, and I don't want my work to contribute to the consolidation of power to a few big firms. And for what, wh…
Here here. I've never empathized with the Luddites more than when discussing this.
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "look I prompted CoPilot for this piece of code that I already knew about and it spit it right out" https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 An english description plus three characters of a function name is enough to coax CoPilot into distributing LGPL-licensed code out of context, without a proper license. That's neither "emotional" nor "cherry-picked", it's a clear-cut license violation.
Suppose you wanted to do what some code does, then you see this LGPL code. What can you do? Adjust variable names and play with line spacing and comments until it feels different?
Many open source project don't allow contributions from people that have worked with similar projects with incompatible licenses. I remember https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme/pull/376#issuecomment-45... and https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Copyright_Issues
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#385I do have to wonder if Copilot will last. It's going to become a legal minefield and I can't imagine for a second that Micrsoft will want to be in the crosshair for another antitrust case.
IMO, It will last. It's impossible to roll it back.
IMO, if the lawsuit goes to a point where it's likely to be won by copyright owners, Open AI could do the following:
- Use less sensitive code from big corps they have partnership with for training. I bet MS and other have plenty of such code.
- Buy training rights from copyright owners of OSS projects. Many of them have SLAs which allow the owner do much more than the license allows.
- Buy rights to train code, and collect generated code with Copilot from a large number of smaller software companies, likely with exclusions for some sensitive parts. MS has a lot of leverage here (discounts, partnerships, etc).
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#386It's tragically beautiful how the copyleft crowd is putting so much effort into drastically expanding the scope of copyright. "I used the copyright to destroy the copyright." That sort of plot never works in practice.
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Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#387What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? Where you have to opt into models or can opt out (and many wind up doing so)? OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield w…
It creates a body of knowledge, everyone can use and can't be sued for since it would be the industry standard way to do things.
> It creates a body of knowledge, everyone can use and can't be sued for since it would be the industry standard way to do things.
That's just not true. If the "industry standard way to do things" is to violate other peoples' copyright, then everyone doing that absolutely can be sued.
And while it's not clear if using these AI tools constitutes copyright infringement, it looks to me like there's at least a very strong case that could be made.
And at up to $10,000 per copy (register your code with the copyright office if you care about this issue!), that starts to add up very quickly. Even for a company like Microsoft.
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#388Crazy idea.. have the automatic code generator check if the code is too similar to a source it was trained on, and if so, automatically include attribution as well.
Ta da!
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#389Copilot is trained on and returns AGPL code verbatim. It’s game over. If these licenses are not enforced it defeats the entire purpose.
It might be the case that it is fair use to train the model on public data, but the code which it produces is covered by AGPL. Github limits liability in its TOS.
(I am not a lawyer).
Re: GitHub Copilot investigation
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copilot wouldn't be shut down or neutered because "a few vocal people" protested against it. It would be because it's illegal and violates the licenses, desires, and intentions of the thousands of workers who wrote the code in its corpus. You act like Microsoft is trying to do a public service and people are angry about it. The reality is that they're taking billions of hours of work and using it to build a product t…
> It would be because it's illegal and violates the licenses, desires, and intentions of the thousands of workers who wrote the code in its corpus. Yeah, the vocal few. Do you think I give a rats ass that Copilot is duplicating my OS code? I have to imagine most people are completely ambivalent. Of course I have no proof, I just can’t imagine anything else. The lines probably fall somewhere along the MIT vs GPL camps…
> Of course I have no proof, I just can’t imagine anything else.
"Ambivalent" means "of two minds," but I'm going to assume you meant that you're indifferent.
If people are/were indifferent, their licenses should reflect that. They overwhelmingly don't.
Regardless, Microsoft is legally bound to obey the licenses.