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GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

githubcopilotinvestigation.com

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Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#471

Post by lucasyvas »

snickerbockers wrote: post #382
rockemsockem wrote: post #128

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? 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…

The removal of the license where the code was learned is the real tidbit that everyone needs to focus on. This is where the laundering comments come from.

The product would be useless if it prompted you with license approvals. They didn't care and removed them. They consciously decided to prioritize their paid-for product over the rights of their users. I'm amazed that MS's lawyers allowed it out the door. That's the even scarier part.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#472

Post by shagie »

lbotos wrote: post #214
rockemsockem wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, he clearly knew about that code in advance and used his prior knowledge to coax Copilot into spitting it out, yeah? Three characters can get you pretty far, that's 1 combination out of 125,580 (considering all english letters, upper and lower, along with most of the numbers and symbols on my keyboard), plus the description of a fairly complex algorithm. Also, this code is really just executing a mathematical…

> Even if it is a copyright violation, that is one out of, IDK, millions, maybe billions already of Copilot completions? If you, only once, steal lines of code that you don't have license to do so and use them to make money, that's the same exact thing. "Trusting the algo" and saying "whoops I'm sorry" doesn't make a strong legal defense. In a company of 1000 programmers, what are the odds that copilot increases the…

> And sure, stackoverflow copying is a thing, but they clearly tell you the license by which you can use said code: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

There are posts under an earlier license which was CC BY-SA 3.0.

There are people who don't have accounts anymore or haven't logged in to accept an updated license.

Only the changes to the post after the 3.0 to 4.0 in the above case are technically licensed under 4.0 (the original post is still under 3.0).

Furthermore, Stack Overflow didn't follow the proper process for updating the license.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333089/stack-exchan...

For example - https://stackoverflow.com/posts/11574647/timeline

Look at the license and the Aug 22 change and consider if that removing "Hope that helps" was a sufficient change to relicense it.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#473

Post by int_19h »

kps wrote: post #458
corndoge wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the image generators routinely generate specific works produced by you (or other artists) then it’s not a directly comparable situation to Copilot.

Like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32573523 > I just got a Dall-E render with a very intact "gettyimages" watermark on it.

Yes, this would be a good example of genuine copyright infringement that shouldn't be tolerated.

Of course, it doesn't mean that all or even most DALL-E output infringes on someone's copyright. The same is true for Copilot. I think both have many legitimate uses if and when the "copyright laundering" issue is solved.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#474

Post by statheros »

bo1024 wrote: post #247

There are two issues -- (1) feeding copyrighted material in to an AI model, and (2) getting copyrighted material out . The latter is obviously a violation of copyright, full stop. The former, to me, is obviously not a violation. If it were, that would massively tilt the playing field in favor of large corporations. It would become very hard to independently train your own models. Philosophically, I go by the principl…

> how deep learning works well enough to control it.

I don't think you can control it. Machine Learning models do not create anything, they make a prediction of the expected outcome based on the training/validation data. Similar to how human beings are an outcome of their experiences, so are ML models. Ofc human beings are much more complex than a ML model.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#475

Post by resonious »

armchairhacker wrote: post #37

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.

Anyone can start their own GitHub competitor and do whatever they want with the source code that ends up on it. GitHub pays the bills and lets us freely upload whatever we want to their service, so it seems a bit entitled to complain about what features or data they provide or don't provide.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#476

Post by vineyardmike »

naikrovek wrote: post #399
jarsj wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it illegal for AI to provide the said assistance ? That, I believe, is the bigger question.

when you put your code on GitHub.com, you grant GitHub the right to show that code to others. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... this is separate from the license you specify in the repository and you can't revoke it without removing your code from github.com.

Does “I give you permission to show this code to others” include “I give you permission to offer this code to others for their use in their code”?

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#477

Post by mgraczyk »

All this discussion of legality is interesting to me, because I'm pretty sure that if Github ran a search in the background, found the corresponding license for the code snippet, then showed it to the user in some cookie-banner like annoyance, it would be completely legal. This is what Github already does on their website with a search bar.

Yet somehow I think most people upset about Copilot would not like that outcome.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#478

Post by [deleted] »

bo1024 wrote: post #247

There are two issues -- (1) feeding copyrighted material in to an AI model, and (2) getting copyrighted material out . The latter is obviously a violation of copyright, full stop. The former, to me, is obviously not a violation. If it were, that would massively tilt the playing field in favor of large corporations. It would become very hard to independently train your own models. Philosophically, I go by the principl…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#479

Post by int_19h »

elil17 wrote: post #447
bugfix-66 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to use my code, without ever knowing I wrote it? You want to use my hard work, regurgitated anonymously, stripped of all credit, stripped of all attribution, stripped of all identity and ancestry and citation? FUCK YOU! Training must be opt in, not opt out. Every artist, every creative individual, must EXPLICITLY OPT IN to having their hard work regurgitated anonymously by Copilot or Dall-E or whatever. If y…

I just don't understand this at all. I publish my code as open source when I can because I want others to find it useful, either by using the software that I wrote or by reusing the code. If I didn't want that, I wouldn't publish the code. But I do want it, so I'm glad there's a way for people to access it more easily. I understand the argument from an artist's perspective much more, since they don't really have the…

Do you place your published code in public domain or use something like CC0? Or do you use a license with some strings (e.g. attribution) attached?

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#480

Post by armchairhacker »

citizenkeen wrote: post #109
armchairhacker wrote: post #37

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.

It’s not making money off of open source, it’s making money off of hosting open source.

Yes. But the people who agree to let GitHub host their code are doing so with the expectation that it's "open source", i.e. freely accessible.

If we define "open source" as "you can't necessarily use this to train an AI", then Copilot itself is illegal because it's using code without permission.

If we define "open source" as "you can use this to train an AI", then Copilot it legal, but GitHub may be illegally misrepresenting itself as a host for "open source", as the policy it hosts code under isn't truly open-source.

If we define "open source" as "you can't necessarily use this to train an AI" but then GitHub's policy explicitly states "by using us as a hosting provider, you give us permission to use your code to train AI" then they are in the clear. But I doubt they have that clause or at least had it when Copilot was first revealed.

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