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Malus – Clean Room as a Service

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Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#371

Post by Atlas667 »

jerf wrote: post #75

An interesting aspect of this, especially their blog post ( https://malus.sh/blog.html ), is that it acknowledges a strain in our legal system I've been observing for decades, but don't think the legal system or people in general have dealt with, which is that generally costs matter . A favorite example of mine is speed limits. There is a difference between "putting up a sign that says 55 mph and walking away", "putt…

Tangentially, this is also the reason why many forms of corruption can be done away with right now with modern technology.

Meaning that democratizing our existing political structures is a reality today and can be done effectively (think blockchain, think zero knowledge proofs).

On the other hand, the political struggle to actually enact this new democratic system will be THE defining struggle of our times.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#372

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

torginus wrote: post #363
ylere wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also shows why this approach is questionable. Opus 4.6 without tool use or web access can provide chardets source code in full from memory/training data (ironically, including the licensing header): https://gist.github.com/yannleretaille/1ce99e1872e5f3b7b133e...

This comes with the uncomfortable implication that its impossible to tell actually to what extent are LLMs pulling together snippets of GPLd code, and to what extent is that legally acceptable.

> and to what extent is that legally acceptable.

De-jure, not at all.

Parallel creation is a very minimal defense to copyright infringement claims. It is practically impossible to prove in humans, to much annoyance of musicians. "Go prove in a court that you have never heard this song, not even in the background somewhere".

LLMs having been trained on all software they could get their hands on will fail this test. There is no parallel creation claim to be had. AI firms love to trot out the "they learn just like humans" which is both false and irrelevant; It's copyright when humans do it to. If you view a GPL'd repo and later reproduce the code unintentionally? Still copyright infringement.

De-facto though, things are different. The technical details behind LLMs are irrelevant. AI companies lie and frustrate discovery, whilst begging politicians to pass laws legalizing their copyright infringement.

There won't be a copyright reckoning, not anymore. All the dumb politicians think AI is going to bail out their economies.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#373

Post by hamdingers »

terryf wrote: post #351
hamdingers wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This unwritten distinction exists only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression. There is no upside (even if getting away with speeding feels good). We should strive to enforce all laws 100% of the time as that is the only fair option. If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower).

The speed limit example is a great one. Consider a road that has a 35mph limit. Now - which of the following scenarios is SAFER: a) I'm driving on the road in a brand new 4x4 porsche on a sunny day with great visibility and brand new tyres. Doing 40mph. b) I'm driving on the same road in a 70s car with legal but somewhat worn out tyres, in the dark, while it's raining heavily. Doing 35mph. Of course technically optio…

The Cayenne would be safer going 35 instead of 40 regardless of all other variables. It's a trivial physics question, kinetic energy is a function of mass and velocity.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#374

Post by Ethee »

dymk wrote: post #263
Ethee wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point he's making is that who is going to actually enforce that? If I take something that has that license and make changes to it, who is going to know? That's the underlying premise here.

The courts? Google “examples of GPL enforced in court” for a few Yeah it requires finding out, but how do you prove a whistleblower broke their NDA?

Your point is circular, let me bring it all around. If I make a 'clean-room' implementation using an LLM of a software that has a GPL license. How does the court enforce that my black box didn't use the original software in any way if there's no way to know? Does having that software as part of it's training corpus automatically enroll all output as GPL enforceable? This is essentially the question some courts are attempting to answer right now.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#375

Post by holoduke »

codethief wrote: post #329
igor47 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dean Ball made this exact point on the Ezra Klein show a few days ago. I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement -- the people passing mandatory sentencing laws for minor drug offenses would think twice if their own children, and not just minorities and unfavourable groups, were subject to the same consequences (instead of rehab or community service). But if I've learned anything in 20 years…

> I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement As Edward Snowden once argued in an AMA on Reddit, a zero crime rate is undesirable for democratic society because it very likely implies that it's impossible to evade law enforcement. The latter, however, means that people won't be able to do much if the laws ever become tyrannic, e.g. due to a change in power. In other words, in a well-functioning…

The people should always have the opportunity and power to behead the government.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#376

Post by terryf »

hamdingers wrote: post #373
terryf wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed limit example is a great one. Consider a road that has a 35mph limit. Now - which of the following scenarios is SAFER: a) I'm driving on the road in a brand new 4x4 porsche on a sunny day with great visibility and brand new tyres. Doing 40mph. b) I'm driving on the same road in a 70s car with legal but somewhat worn out tyres, in the dark, while it's raining heavily. Doing 35mph. Of course technically optio…

The Cayenne would be safer going 35 instead of 40 regardless of all other variables. It's a trivial physics question, kinetic energy is a function of mass and velocity.

I meant a 911 but thank you for answering a completely different point than what I was making.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#377

Post by derefr »

ff317 wrote: post #281
Twey wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with precise law enforcement is that the legal system is incredibly complex. There's a tagline that ‘everybody's a criminal’; I don't know if that's necessarily true but I do definitely believe that a large number of ‘innocent’ people are criminals (by the letter of the law) without their knowledge. Because we usually only bother to prosecute crimes if some obvious harm has been done this doesn't cause a…

The reason speed limits make such a great example for these arguments is because they're a preemptive law. Technically, nobody is directly harmed by speeding. We outlaw speeding on the belief that it statistically leads to and/or is correlated with other harms. Contrast this to a law against assault or theft: in those kinds of cases, the law makes the direct harm itself illegal. Increasing the precision of enforcemen…

I think I would expect certain laws that are currently considered statutory / strict-liability laws, to be shifted to instead constitute only "evidence of negligence" and/or act as "aggravating conditions."

So, in the case of speeding:

- Speeding on its own would only automatically "warrant" the police to stop you / interview you / tell you off, and perhaps to follow you around for a while after they pull you over, to ensure you don't start speeding again (and to immediately pull you over again if you do.) I say "warrant" here because this doesn't actually give them any powers that private citizens don't have; rather, it protects them from you suing them for harassment for what they're doing. (Just like a "search warrant" doesn't give the police any additional powers per se, but rather protects them from civil and criminal damages associated with them breaking-and-entering into the specified location, destroying any property therein, etc.)

- But speeding while in the process of committing some other "actual" crime, or speeding that contributes to some other crime being committed, may be an aggravating factor that multiplies the penalty associated with the other act, or changes the nominal charge for the other act.

We might also then see a tweak for "threshold aggravations", such that e.g.

- Speeding while also doing some other dumb thing — having your brake-lights broken, say — may be considered to "cross a threshold" where they add up to an arrest+charge, even though none of the individual violations has a penalty when considered independently.

This would, AFAICT, translate well into a regime where there are little traffic-cop drones everywhere, maximizing speeding enforcement. If speeding is all they notice someone doing, they'd just be catch-and-release-ing people: pulling them over, squawking at them, and flying away. Literal slap-on-the-wrist tactics. Which is actually usefully deterrent on its own, if there are enough of these drones, and they just keep doing it, over and over again, to violators. (Do note that people can't just "not pull over" because they know there are no penalties involved; they would still be considered police, and "not complying with a police stop" would, as always, be a real crime with real penalties; if you run from the drone, it would summon actual cars to chase you!)

---

Oddly, I think if you follow this legal paradigm to its natural conclusion, it could lead to a world where it could even be legal to e.g. drive your car home from the bar while intoxicated... as long as you're driving at 2mph, with your hazards on, and avoiding highways. But miss any of those factors, and it "co-aggravates" with a "driving recklessly for your reaction speed" charge, into an actual crime.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#378

Post by coryrc »

holoduke wrote: post #375
codethief wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement As Edward Snowden once argued in an AMA on Reddit, a zero crime rate is undesirable for democratic society because it very likely implies that it's impossible to evade law enforcement. The latter, however, means that people won't be able to do much if the laws ever become tyrannic, e.g. due to a change in power. In other words, in a well-functioning…

The people should always have the opportunity and power to behead the government.

That's tautological without the existence of cylons.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#379

Post by cortesoft »

codethief wrote: post #329
igor47 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dean Ball made this exact point on the Ezra Klein show a few days ago. I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement -- the people passing mandatory sentencing laws for minor drug offenses would think twice if their own children, and not just minorities and unfavourable groups, were subject to the same consequences (instead of rehab or community service). But if I've learned anything in 20 years…

> I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement As Edward Snowden once argued in an AMA on Reddit, a zero crime rate is undesirable for democratic society because it very likely implies that it's impossible to evade law enforcement. The latter, however, means that people won't be able to do much if the laws ever become tyrannic, e.g. due to a change in power. In other words, in a well-functioning…

Yep, not ever being able to break a law means that whatever the current set of laws are will never be able to be changed. If people can't ever push the boundaries of the law, we can never realize that the boundaries are in the wrong place.

Take some examples of laws that have changed over time. Say, interracial marriage. It was illegal in many places to marry someone of a different race. If this had been perfectly enforced, no one would have ever dated or see couples of different races, and people would have had a lot harder of a time exploring and realizing that the law was wrong.

The same thing could be said about marijuana legalization. If enforcement was perfect, no one would have ever tried marijuana, and there would have never been a movement to legalize by people who used it and decided it was not something that should be banned.

We need to be able to push boundaries so they can move when needed.

Re: Malus – Clean Room as a Service

#380

Post by cortesoft »

miki123211 wrote: post #284
jerf wrote: post #75

An interesting aspect of this, especially their blog post ( https://malus.sh/blog.html ), is that it acknowledges a strain in our legal system I've been observing for decades, but don't think the legal system or people in general have dealt with, which is that generally costs matter . A favorite example of mine is speed limits. There is a difference between "putting up a sign that says 55 mph and walking away", "putt…

And this goes both ways. Many governments around the world have entities to which you can write a letter, and those entities are frequently obligated to respond to that letter within a specific time frame. Those laws have been written with the understanding that most people don't know how to write letters, and those who do, will not write them unless absolutely necessary. This allows the regulators to be slow and ope…

I have some lawyer friends, who work as internal council to companies, that are already experiencing this.

People are cranking out legal requests and claims with LLMs and sending them to companies. Almost all of them are pretty much meaningless, and should be ignored.

However, they legally can't just ignore them. They have to have someone review the claim, verify that it is bullshit, and then they can ignore it. That takes time, though.

So people can generate and send millions of legal claim instantly, but the lawyers have to read them one by one.

The asymmetry of effort is huge, and causes real issues.

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