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GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

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Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#101

Post by belter »

One interesting aspect, that I thing will make it difficult for GitHub to argue and justify its not a a license violation would be the answer to the following question: Was Copilot trained using Microsoft internal source code or will it be in the future ?

As GitHub is a Microsoft company and OpenAI although a non-profit just got a massive one billion investment from Microsoft (presumably not for free), will it start spitting out once in a while Windows kernel code ? :-)

And if it was NOT trained on Microsoft source code, because it could starting suggesting some of it...Is that not a validation that the results it produces are a derivative work based on the work of the open source code corpus it was trained on ? IANAL...

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#102

Post by toss1 »

invig wrote: post #88
mrosett wrote: post #67

The second tweet in the thread seems badly off the mark in its understanding of copyright law. > copyright does not only cover copying and pasting; it covers derivative works. github copilot was trained on open source code and the sum total of everything it knows was drawn from that code. there is no possible interpretation of "derivative" that does not include this Copyright law is very complicated (remember Google…

If you can read open source code, learn from it, and write your own code, why can't a computer?

As the original commenter said, you have the capability for abstract learning, thought, zand generalized learning, which the "AI" lacks.

It is not uncommon to ask person to "explain in your own words..." - as in use your own abstract internal representation of the learned concepts to demonstrate that you have developed such an abstract internal concept of the topic, and are not merely regurgitating re-disorganized input snippets.

If you don't understand the difference...

edit: That said, if you can create a computer capable of such different abstract thought, congratulations, you've solved the problem of Artificial General Intelligence, and will be welcomed to the Trillionaires' Club

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#103

Post by MaxBarraclough »

pc86 wrote: post #53
gutino wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the rate of product/services that machinery will produce will make that even a small tax to corporations producing everything autonomously will be enough to feed and give a quality of life to everyone with an UBI or partial time jobs. You really want to push for high productivity across all industries, even if that means sacrificing jobs in the short term, because history demonstrated after that, new and more hum…

Every decade was supposed to see fewer hours working for higher pay and quality of life. It didn't happen, as business owners (not just 1% fat cats, the owners of mom and pop shops are at least as guilty as anyone, they just sucked at scaling their avarice). So the claim that this technological revolution will be different and that it will result in a broad social safety net, universal basic income, and substantive,…

> those left behind working more hours for less

Doing what? Isn't the concern here that automation will push many people out of the workforce entirely?

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#104

Post by pedrobtz »

thundergolfer wrote: post #8

Attempts to litigate any license violation are going to get precisely nowhere I bet, but I find the actual license violation argument persuasive. This is an excellent example of how the AI singularity/revolution/whatever is a total distraction and that a much bigger and more serious issue is how AI is becoming so effective at turning the output of cheap/free human mental labour into capital. If AI keeps getting bette…

Can the same argument/concerns be applied to all text generation AI?

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#105

Post by onli »

kklisura wrote: post #18

Should we be changing our open source licenses to explicitly prevent training such systems using our code?

I'd assume this: In the same way as you can not forbid a human to learn concepts from your code, you can not forbid an automated system to learn concepts from your code, regardless the license. Also, if you would it would make your code non-free.

At least as long as the system really learns concepts. If it just copy & pastes code, then that's a different story (same as with humans).

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#106

Post by oaiey »

koonsolo wrote: post #54

I propose we as developers, start a secret society where we let the AI write the code, but we still claim to write it manually. In combination with the new working from home policies, we can lay at the beach all day and still be as productive as before. Who is in favor of starting it? ;)

You have not been invited yet .... never mind.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#109

Post by shrimp_emoji »

KMnO4 wrote: post #65
koonsolo wrote: post #54

I propose we as developers, start a secret society where we let the AI write the code, but we still claim to write it manually. In combination with the new working from home policies, we can lay at the beach all day and still be as productive as before. Who is in favor of starting it? ;)

This would be the demise of the human race. I’m not entirely opposed to that, though. When AI inevitably outperforms humans on almost all tasks, who am I to say humans deserve to be given those tasks?

It's an outrage that the dinosaurs had to die so that humans could inherit the Earth!

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#110

Post by toyg »

all_rights_rsvd wrote: post #94
jordemort wrote: post #56

What happens when someone puts code up on GitHub with a license that says "This code may not be used for training a code generation model"? - Is GitHub actually going to pay any attention to that, or are they just going to ingest the code and thus violate its license anyway? - If they go ahead and violate the code's license, what are the legal repercussions for the resulting model? Can a model be "un-trained" from a…

I post my code publicly, but with an "all rights reserved" licence. I don't mind everyone reading my code freely, but you can't use it for anything but learning. If I found out they were ingesting my code I would be angry. It's like training your replacement. I don't use GitHub, anyways, but now I'll definitely never even think about it.

Technically then I'm infringing as soon as I clone your repo, possibly even as soon as a webserver sends your files to my browser.

"All rights reserved" makes sense on final items, like books or physical records, that require no copy or change after owner-approved manufacturing has taken place. It doesn't really make sense on digital artefacts.

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