Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A derivative work is a work that itself includes copyrighted content from the original work. If you put a GPL C program through Emscripten to run in a browser the output doesn't include the original C code but it's surely a derivative work. > Someone who looks at a dozen code examples in public repos to learn how to do e.g. a quick sort, then upon understanding the logic flow of the quick sort algorithm, writes his…
> If you put a GPL C program through Emscripten to run in a browser the output doesn't include the original C code but it's surely a derivative work. Because it does include content from the original work -- this is just a translation, and isn't comparable to how LLMs work. > To me the answer is simply that humans are special. I don't disagree, but I also view LLMs as tools that extend human capacities and not autono…
I agree with the framing of the AI as a tool not an autonomous entity. The thing is, to me, it is exactly that framing that makes it so the use of that tool means "copying" more than it means "learning and taking inspiration and creating new art", because who is doing the learning and being inspired? The person who types "make me a 3d arena FPS" certainly didn't do any learning from the Quake source code. The AI itself, being just a program, can't take credit.
I think of a trained AI like a lossy, highly compressed copy of its training data set. AI companies charge access to decompress targeted pieces of that copy and the lossiness makes that decompression interesting and "new". But normally I can't charge for access to other people's stuff even if the access is highly lossy, like a camcorder bootleg.