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AI and the Ship of Theseus

lucumr.pocoo.org

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Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#21

Post by dec0dedab0de »

keithnz wrote: post #10
scuff3d wrote: post #6

The solution to this whole situation seems pretty simple to me. LLMs were trained on a giant mix of code, and it's impossible to disentangle it, but a not insignificant portion of their capabilities comes from GPL licenced code. Therefore, any codebase that uses LLM code is now GPL. You have a proprietary product? Not anymore. Not saying there's a legal precedent for that right now, but it's the only thing that makes…

if you train yourself by looking at GPL code then go implement your own things, is that code GPL?

it can be, depending on if it is different enough to convince a jury that it is not a copyright violation. See the lawsuits from Marvin Gaye's family to see how that can be unpredictable.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#22

Post by cheesecompiler »

> 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 weren't incentivized to open source. GPL helped ensure software stayed open which helped it become competitive against the monopoly proprietary giants resting on their laurels. The restriction helped innovation, not the supposedly free market.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#23

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

trueismywork wrote: post #9
jimmaswell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entirely misses the point. Re-implementing code based on API surface and compatibility is established fair use if done properly (Compaq v. IBM, Google v. Oracle). There's nothing wrong with doing that if you don't like a license. What's in question is doing this with AI that may or may not have been trained on the source. In the instance in the article where the result is very different, it's probably in the cle…

The real test would be to see how much of generated code is similar to the old code. Because then it is still a copyright. Just becsuse you drew mickey mouse from memory doesnt above you if it looks close enough to original hickey mouse.

> The real test would be to see how much of generated code is similar to the old code.

I have looked at the project earlier today there is effectively no resemblance other than the public API.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#24

Post by cheesecompiler »

After cloning a test suite you're still left with ongoing maintenance and development, maintaining feature parity etc. There's a lot more than passing a test suite. If the rewrite is truly superior it deserves to become the new Ship of Theseus. But e.g. I doubt anyone's AI rewrites of SQLite will ever put a dent in its marketshare.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#25

Post by HappyPanacea »

measurablefunc wrote: post #15
nomdep wrote: post #7

In this emerging reality, the whole spectrum of open-source licenses effectively collapses toward just two practical choices: release under something permissive like MIT (no real restrictions), or keep your software fully proprietary and closed. These are fascinating, if somewhat scary, times.

If you listen to the people who believe real AI is right around the corner then any software can be recreated from a detailed enough specification b/c whatever special sauce is hidden in the black box can be inferred from its outward behavior. Real AI is more brilliant than whatever algorithm you could ever think of so if the real AI can interact w/ your software then it can recreate a much better version of it w/o l…

> b/c whatever special sauce is hidden in the black box can be inferred from its outward behavior.

This is not always true, for an extreme example see Indistinguishability obfuscation.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#26

Post by vintagedave »

nomdep wrote: post #7

In this emerging reality, the whole spectrum of open-source licenses effectively collapses toward just two practical choices: release under something permissive like MIT (no real restrictions), or keep your software fully proprietary and closed. These are fascinating, if somewhat scary, times.

Or GPL. Which I’m increasingly thinking is the only license. It requires sharing.

And if anything can be reimplemented and there’s no value in the source any more, just the spec or tests, there’s no public-interest reason for any restriction other than completely free, in the GPL sense.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#27

Post by GaggiX »

measurablefunc wrote: post #15
nomdep wrote: post #7

In this emerging reality, the whole spectrum of open-source licenses effectively collapses toward just two practical choices: release under something permissive like MIT (no real restrictions), or keep your software fully proprietary and closed. These are fascinating, if somewhat scary, times.

If you listen to the people who believe real AI is right around the corner then any software can be recreated from a detailed enough specification b/c whatever special sauce is hidden in the black box can be inferred from its outward behavior. Real AI is more brilliant than whatever algorithm you could ever think of so if the real AI can interact w/ your software then it can recreate a much better version of it w/o l…

>Real AI is more brilliant than whatever algorithm you could ever think of

So with "Real AI" you actually mean artificial superintelligence.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#28

Post by measurablefunc »

GaggiX wrote: post #27
measurablefunc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you listen to the people who believe real AI is right around the corner then any software can be recreated from a detailed enough specification b/c whatever special sauce is hidden in the black box can be inferred from its outward behavior. Real AI is more brilliant than whatever algorithm you could ever think of so if the real AI can interact w/ your software then it can recreate a much better version of it w/o l…

>Real AI is more brilliant than whatever algorithm you could ever think of So with "Real AI" you actually mean artificial superintelligence.

I wrote what I meant & meant what I wrote. You can take up your argument w/ the people who think they're working on AI by adding more data centers & more matrix multiplications to function graphs if you want to argue about marketing terms.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#29

Post by Hamuko »

vintagedave wrote: post #26
nomdep wrote: post #7

In this emerging reality, the whole spectrum of open-source licenses effectively collapses toward just two practical choices: release under something permissive like MIT (no real restrictions), or keep your software fully proprietary and closed. These are fascinating, if somewhat scary, times.

Or GPL. Which I’m increasingly thinking is the only license. It requires sharing. And if anything can be reimplemented and there’s no value in the source any more, just the spec or tests, there’s no public-interest reason for any restriction other than completely free, in the GPL sense.

>Or GPL. Which I’m increasingly thinking is the only license. It requires sharing.

It doesn't if Dan Blanchard spends some tokens on it and then licenses the output as MIT.

Re: AI and the Ship of Theseus

#30

Post by AuthAuth »

erelong wrote: post #19

hopefully this continues to show how awkward the idea of "intellectual property" (IP) is until people abandon it IP sounds good in theory but enables things like "patent trolling" by large corps and creating all kinds of goofy barriers and arbitrary questions like we're asking about if re-implementations of ideas are "really ours" (maybe they were never anyone's in the first place, outside of legally created mentalit…

I have no data to back this up but patent trolling seems to happen far less than companies that already own significant infra/talent ripping products from smaller companies and out competing them with their scale. I'd rather have patent trolling than have Amazon manufacturer everything i launch.

The problem with IP laws and the US is that the big companies already do what IP is suppose to protect and the US refuses to legislate effectively against them.

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