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GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

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Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#201

Post by WillDaSilva »

animal_spirits wrote: post #147
WillDaSilva wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was debating bringing up disruptors when I made the grandparent comment. My 2 cents: they can shift the balance of power at the very small scale (e.g. "some random nobody" getting rich, or some rich person going bankrupt), but the large scale power structures almost always remain largely intact. For instance, that "random nobody" may well get rich through the sale of shares in their company - now the company is own…

> but the large scale power structures almost always remain largely intact Is that anything new? That seems to be a repeating fact of life throughout history.

Nothing new, certainly, but still worth examining. If we are not content with the current power structures, then we should be wary of changes that further intensify them.

We need not totally avoid such changes (i.e. shun technological advancements entirely because of their social ramifications), but we need to be mindful of their effects if we want to improve our current situation regarding the distribution/concentration of wealth and power in the world.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#202

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #152
jordemort wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specifically, the relevant bit is here: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This l…

Wait so does this mean a “private repo” is meaningless and GitHub can share any code in any repo with anyone?

Hey... want to take a guess why Microsoft lets you have unlimited free private repos when they bought GitHub? ;)

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#203

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ipaddr wrote: post #195
Jgrubb wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed that one of the reasons Google et al work on AI is because software engineers are too expensive.

So google pays the highest but still thinks engineers are paid too much? Why not pay them less.. the set high tier? For google support employees cost too much.

They don’t pay the highest. And if they paid a lot less everyone would leave.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#204

Post by aj3 »

bogwog wrote: post #40
freshhawk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose someone should make a OS-generating AI, conceptually it can just have windows, osx and some linux distros in it and output one based on a question about favorite color or something. You'd just have to wrap it in a nice complex model representation so it's a black box you fed example OS's with some meta-data into and it happens to output this very useful data. After all, once you use something as input to a…

That would be interesting: * Someone leaks Windows 10/11 source code * Copilot picks it up in its training data * Someone uses copilot to generate a Windows clone and starts selling it I wonder how Microsoft would react to that. I wonder if they've manually blacklisted leaked source code from Windows (or other Microsoft products) so that it doesn't show up in Copilot's training data. If they have, that means Microsof…

Come on, there is a huge gap between 1) writing a single function (potentially incorrectly) with a known prototype/interface and a description and 2) designing interfaces, datatypes and APIs themselves.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#205

Post by macinjosh »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #155
invokestatic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By uploading your content to GitHub, you’ve granted them a license to use that content to “improve the Service over time”, as specified in the ToS[1]. That effectively “overrides” any license or term that you’ve specified for your repository, since you’ve already licensed the content to GitHub under different terms. Of course, people who are not GitHub are beholden to the terms you specify. [1] https://docs.github.co…

How is this different from uploading a hollywood movie to youtube? Just because there is a passage in the terms that the uploader supposedly gave them those rights, this does not mean they actually have the power to do that.

Not sure how much it would matter but the main difference I see is that if I upload my own code to GitHub I have the ability to give away the IP, but if I upload Avengers End Game to YouTube I don't have the right to give that away.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#206

Post by qayxc »

zeptonix wrote: post #194

The tone of the responses here is absurd. Guys, be grateful for some progress. Instead of having to retype boilerplate code, your productivity is now enhanced by having a system that can do it for you. This is primarily about reducing the need to re-type total boilerplate and/or copy/paste from Stackoverflow. If you were to let some of the people here run things we'd never have any form of progress with anything ever…

Questions like this go much deeper and illustrate issues that need to be addressed before the technology becomes standard and widely adopted.

It's not about progress or supressing it, it's a fundamental question about whether it is OK for huge companies to profit from the work of others without as much as giving credit, and if using AI this way represents an instance of doing so.

The latter aspect goes beyond productivity or licensing - the OP asserts that AI isn't equivalent to a student who learned from examples how to perform a task, but rather replicates (recalls) or reproduces the works of others (e.g. the training material).

It's a question that goes beyond this particular application: what about GAN-based generators? Do they merely reproduce slight variations of the training material? If so, wouldn't the authors of the training material have some kind of intellectual property rights to the generated works?

This doesn't just concern code snippets, it's a general question about AI, crediting creators, and circumventing licensing and intellectual property rights.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#207

Post by klyrs »

whydoibother wrote: post #170
hdhjebebeb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where other people see fully automated luxury communism, you see the end of the human race? There's more to life than working

Hate to break it to you, but that wouldn’t lead to communism. The people it replaces are useless to the ruling class. At best we’d go back to feudalism, at worst we’d be deemed worthless and a drain on the planet.

I'm always confused when I see people talking about automated luxury communism. Whoever owns the "means of production" isn't going to obtain or develop them for free. Without some omnipotent benevolent world government to build it out for all, I just don't see it happening. It's a beautiful end goal for society, but I've never seen a remotely plausible set of intermediate steps to get there

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#208

Post by junon »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #162
cxr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of a LICENSE file is neither necessary nor sufficient to determine the terms that apply to a given work.

Why not? If it does not exist you treat it as proprietary (copyrighted by default) and if it does exist at least the author claims that the given license is an option (possibly their mistake, not mine)

Because individual source files might have license headers that override the root license file in the repository.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#210

Post by ipaddr »

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #152
jordemort wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specifically, the relevant bit is here: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o... > We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This l…

Wait so does this mean a “private repo” is meaningless and GitHub can share any code in any repo with anyone?

That is not even the right question.

Why are developers so myopic around big tech? Of course they can. Facebook can use your private photos. It's in their terms and services. Cloud providers have more generous terms.

The response has always been they won't do that because they have a reputation to manage. The further they grow the further they control the narrative so the less this matters.

Wait until you find out they sell your data or use your data to sell products.

Why in 2021 are we giving Microsoft all of our code? It seems like the 90s, 2000s never happened and we all trust microsoft. They have a free editor and a free operating system that sends packets of activity the user does back to microsoft but that's okay.. we want to help improve their products? We trust them.

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