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AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

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Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#91

Post by [deleted] »

sarchertech wrote: post #52
Chance-Device wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the mechanism: responsibility is a social construct, it works the way people say that it works. If we all agree that a human can agree to bear the responsibility for AI outputs, and face any consequences resulting from those outputs, then that’s the whole shebang.

Sure we could change the law. It would be a stupid change to allow individuals, organizations, and companies to completely shield themselves from the consequences of risky behaviors (more than we already do) simply by assigning all liability to a fall guy.

[deleted]

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#92

Post by [deleted] »

sarchertech wrote: post #68
Chance-Device wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law exactly are you suggesting needs to be changed? How is this any different from what already happens right now, today?

Right now it's very easy not to infringe on copyrighted code if you write the code yourself. In the vast majority of cases if you infringed it's because you did something wrong that you could have prevented (in the case where you didn't do anything wrong, inducement creation is an affirmative defense against copyright infringement). That is not the case when using AI generated code. There is no way to use it without…

[deleted]

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#94

Post by Lerc »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #74
galaxyLogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if AI output is not under GNU General Public License, how can it become so just because a Linux-developer adds it to the code-base?

AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. The work might hypothetically infringe on other people's copyright. But such an infringement does not happen until a human decides to create and distribute a work that somehow integrates that generated code or text. The solution documented here seems very pragmatic. You as a contribut…

>AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright.

That is a non sequitur. Also, I'm not sure if copyright applies to humans, or persons (not that I have encountered particularly creative corporations, but Taranaki Maunga has been known for large scale decorative works)

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#95

Post by nitwit005 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #74
galaxyLogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if AI output is not under GNU General Public License, how can it become so just because a Linux-developer adds it to the code-base?

AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. The work might hypothetically infringe on other people's copyright. But such an infringement does not happen until a human decides to create and distribute a work that somehow integrates that generated code or text. The solution documented here seems very pragmatic. You as a contribut…

That you can't copyright the AI's output (in the US, at least), doesn't imply it doesn't contain copyrighted material. If you generate an image of a Disney character, Disney still owns the copyright to that character.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#96

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Chance-Device wrote: post #49
sarchertech wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a court case the responsibility party very well could be the Linux foundation because this is a foreseeable consequence of allowing AI contributions. There’s no reasonable way for a human to make such a guarantee while using AI generated code.

It’s not about the mechanism: responsibility is a social construct, it works the way people say that it works. If we all agree that a human can agree to bear the responsibility for AI outputs, and face any consequences resulting from those outputs, then that’s the whole shebang.

Responsibility is an objective fact, not just some arbitrary social convention. What we can agree or disagree about is where it rests, but that's a matter of inference, an inference can be more or less correct. We might assign certain people certain responsibilities before the fact, but that's to charge them with the care of some good, not to blame them for things before they were charged with their care.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#97

Post by bitwize »

sarchertech wrote: post #33
shevy-java wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the responsible party is still the human who added the code. Not the tool that helped do so.

In a court case the responsibility party very well could be the Linux foundation because this is a foreseeable consequence of allowing AI contributions. There’s no reasonable way for a human to make such a guarantee while using AI generated code.

Because contributions to Linux are meticulously attributed to, and remain property of, their authors, those authors bear ultimate responsibility. If Fred Foobar sends patches to the kernel that, as it turns out, contain copyrighted code, then provided upstream maintainers did reasonable due diligence the court will go after Fred Foobar for damages, and quite likely demand that the kernel organization no longer distribute copies of the kernel with Fred's code in it.

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#99

Post by KhayaliY »

We've seen in the past, for instance in the world of compliance, that if companies/governments want something done or make a mistake, they just have a designated person act as scapegoat.

So what's preventing lawyers/companies having a batch of people they use as scapegoats, should something go wrong?

Re: AI assistance when contributing to the Linux kernel

#100

Post by nitwit005 »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #46
sarchertech wrote: post #29

This does nothing to shield Linux from responsibility for infringing code. This is essentially like a retail store saying the supplier is responsible for eliminating all traces of THC from their hemp when they know that isn’t a reasonable request to make. It’s a foreseeable consequence. You don’t get to grant yourself immunity from liability like this.

Quite a lot of companies use and release AI written code, are they all liable?

Yep, and honestly it's going to come up with things other than lawsuits.

I've worked at a company that was asked as part of a merger to scan for code copied from open source. That ended up being a major issue for the merger. People had copied various C headers around in odd places, and indeed stolen an odd bit of telnet code. We had to go clean it up.

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