Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI and the Ship of Theseus

lucumr.pocoo.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 203 posts

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#131

Post by magicalist »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #126
graemep wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand it, the US Supreme Court has just this week ruled exactly this. LLM output cannot be copyrighted, so the only part of any piece of software that can be copyrighted is that part that was created by a human. Your understanding is incorrect. The case was about whether an LLM can be an author, and did not whether the person using it can be (which will be the case). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

This is the correct understanding. Go back to the selfie of the monkey. Is the monkey the creator of the photo? Does he own the copyright? No. The photographer who created the opportunity for the monkey to take the selfie is the holder of the copyright on that image. Similarly, the operator of the LLM is the holder of the copyright of the LLM’s output.

> This is the correct understanding. Go back to the selfie of the monkey. Is the monkey the creator of the photo? Does he own the copyright? No. The photographer who created the opportunity for the monkey to take the selfie is the holder of the copyright on that image.

This is incorrect. The monkey is unable to have a copyright on the photograph, but there was no court case suggesting the owner of the camera (Slater) has a copyright on the photo, and the Copyright Office's rules actually say the opposite, that it isn't copyrightable at all (the Wikipedia summary of the situation is good, pointing out the Copyright Office specifically added an example of "a photograph taken by a monkey" to their guidance to make their point clear).

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#132

Post by davidcollantes »

> Right now I would argue that unless some evidence of the contrary could be provided, this can be seen as a new implementation from ground up.

Not ship of Theseus, but a "new implementation from ground up.

Evidently, the author prefers MIT (https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4...), and seems OK with slop-coding.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#133

Post by littlestymaar »

jason_oster wrote: post #56
cheesecompiler wrote: post #22

> I personally think all of this is exciting. I’m a strong supporter of putting things in the open with as little license enforcement as possible. I think society is better off when we share, and I consider the GPL to run against that spirit by restricting what can be done with it. I like sharing too but could permissive only licenses not backfire? GPL emerged in an era where proprietary software ruled and companies…

You're putting a lot of responsibility on a license that has several permissive contemporaries. The original BSD license "Net/1" and GPL 1.0 were both published in 1989, while the MIT license has its roots set in "probably 1987" [1] with the release of X11. No doubt, GPL had some influence. But I would hardly single it out as the force that ensured software stayed open. Software stayed open because "information wants…

Linux won against the multiple proprietary Unixes because it forced corporations to contribute back instead of keeping their secret sauce for themselves.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#134

Post by latexr »

> There is an obvious moral question here, but that isn’t necessarily what I’m interested in.

And thus we arrive at the absolute shit state the world is in. We keep putting morality aside for something “more interesting” then forget to consider it back in when making the final point.

“Have you tried: “kill all the poor?””

https://youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#135

Post by magicalist »

ketzu wrote: post #122
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if it can't be copyrighted that means it is in the public domain from the instant it was created and can't be licensed. I don't think this follows? If I vibe code something and never post it anywhere public, I can still license that code to a company and ask them to pay me for using the code? So as a corollary, the business model of providing software where you can choose either free (as in beer) and restrictiv…

> I can still license that code to a company and ask them to pay me for using the code I believe you can do that with public domain/copyright free material in general. There is no requirement to tell someone that the material you license them is also available under a different one or that your license is not enforceable.

Depending on how you do it and they find out, you could certainly be sued for fraud and misrepresentation, though. And, if you put a "copyright by me" at the top of a public domain work, it's technically a crime under 17 U.S.C. § 506(c) - Fraudulent Copyright Notice

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/506#c

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#136

Post by fpaf »

beloch wrote: post #89

Perhaps code licensing is going to become more similar to music. e.g. Somebody wrote a library, and then you had an LLM implement it in a new language. You didn't come up with the idea for whatever the library does, and you didn't "perform" the new implementation. You're neither writer nor performer, just the person who requested a new performance. You're basically a club owner who hired a band to cover some tunes. T…

I find the music example very illuminating, thanks! Looking into US Copyright for songs there are two different kinds:

- one for the composition, the musical idea, music, lyrics.

-one for the recording, the music taking shape in a format that someone can listen to

I don't think this is how software licenses work, as they cover the code itself, rather than the ideas (the specific recording rather than the composition, in the music example), but it's an interesting way to frame why using LLM this way is, if not illegal, at least unethical.

source: https://www.copyright.gov/engage/musicians/

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#137

Post by latexr »

LucasAegis wrote: post #129

AI is merely a sophisticated tool. If your original thoughts achieve a tangible result through this tool, the ownership should reside with the thinker. Reverse-engineering, in this context, shouldn't be seen merely as an infringement on AI-generated code, but as a violation of the human intellect and systemic design that orchestrated that code. We need to move past protecting 'lines of code' and start protecting the…

> If your original thoughts achieve a tangible result through this tool, the ownership should reside with the thinker.

What if you ask the tool “come up with an idea and build it” and it makes you an (obviously) derivative app? Or what if (closer to this post) you say “copy this thing, but differently so we don’t get into legal trouble”? Is any of those an “original thought” worthy of ownership of the output?

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#138

Post by LucasAegis »

bayindirh wrote: post #130
LucasAegis wrote: post #129

AI is merely a sophisticated tool. If your original thoughts achieve a tangible result through this tool, the ownership should reside with the thinker. Reverse-engineering, in this context, shouldn't be seen merely as an infringement on AI-generated code, but as a violation of the human intellect and systemic design that orchestrated that code. We need to move past protecting 'lines of code' and start protecting the…

What if the tool needs an amalgam of everything on the internet to barely function and some of this everything has a big red label saying that adding said thing to this amalgam is forbidden for a reason or another? Further, what if this tool can reproduce these forbidden things almost or completely verbatim and the user of the tool has no way to verify it?

You are focusing on the 'bricks' (the literal lines of code), but your argument overlooks the fundamental reality of Architectural Interdependency. In the era of AI-driven synthesis, we must shift our perspective from linguistic expression to systemic logic.

Think of software development as finding a structural path from point A to point D.

1.The Foundational Gateway (A → B): You are correct that AI tools are an amalgam of existing data. This foundational layer (A-B) represents the "Prior Art" or the existing IP that serves as a necessary gateway for any further development. If the path starts here, the rights of the original creators must be respected through the established legal framework of Intellectual Property Offices.

2.The Innovative Branch (F → D): However, if an orchestrator uses a tool to forge a new path via a distinct architecture (F) to reach the destination (D), that specific "delta" is a unique intellectual asset. Even if the tool "borrows" the bricks, the topological map of the new architecture belongs to the thinker who directed it.

3.The Necessity of Cross-Licensing: This is where the true core of IP exists. If the owner of the foundation (A-B) wishes to utilize the superior, optimized results of the new path (ABFD), they must respect the IP of the FD architecture. Conversely, the FD creator must acknowledge the base.

We aren't just talking about 'verbatim reproduction' of code; we are talking about the Systemic Design that justifies the existence of IP offices worldwide. The future isn't about "cleaning" licenses through AI, but about a more sophisticated world of Cross-Licensing where the foundational layer and the innovative layer recognize each other's functional logic.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#139

Post by globular-toast »

> The motivation: enabling relicensing from LGPL to MIT.

Good heavens, that's incredibly unethical. I suppose I should expect nothing more from a profession that has shied away from ethics essentially since its conception.

> I think society is better off when we share

Me too.

> and I consider the GPL to run against that spirit by restricting what can be done with it.

The GPL explicitly allows anyone to do anything with it, apart from not sharing it.

You want me to share with you, but you don't want to share with me.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#140

Post by rkJahsdg »

cheesecompiler wrote: post #22

> I personally think all of this is exciting. I’m a strong supporter of putting things in the open with as little license enforcement as possible. I think society is better off when we share, and I consider the GPL to run against that spirit by restricting what can be done with it. I like sharing too but could permissive only licenses not backfire? GPL emerged in an era where proprietary software ruled and companies…

Ronacher has a startup Earendil that markets itself as a non-profit like OpenAI. He appears with Austrian OpenClaw people.

He is totally in on AI and that quote of his is self-serving. Can't we go back to flaming Unicode in Python?

Post reply on HN