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We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

githubcopilotlitigation.com

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Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#451

Post by heavyset_go »

rowanG077 wrote: post #413
heavyset_go wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can model all the protons, electrons and photons incredibly accurately. We can't even accurately model a receptor protein on a cell or the binding of its ligands, nor can we accurately simulate a single neuron. This is one of those hard problems in computing and medicine. It is very much an open question about how or if we can model complex biology accurately like that.

I didn't say we can simulate it. There is a massive leap from what I said to being able to simulate it.

I'm using simulate as a synonym for model. For any biological model at the atomic, molecular and protein levels, accuracy is key for useful models. What I'm saying is that accuracy at that level is a hard problem in computing and biology, and even simple protein interactions are hard problems.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#452

Post by topher6345 »

Is it not in the agency of the developer to hit the save button?

It seems like GitHub Copilot can spit out copyrighted works all day but the person running the text editor has to "choose" which Copilot output to actually save/commit/deploy.

Does it really matter that much "how" the text in your text editor gets there? You write it yourself or copy/paste it or have Copilot generate it. Ultimately the individual that "approved" it to be saved to the disk is the one violating the copyright, Copilot is just making a "suggestion".

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#453

Post by falcolas »

Crackpot Theory: Copilot (and by association many ML tools) is a form of probabilistic encryption. Once encoded, it's virtually impossible to pull the code (plaintext) directly out of the raw ML model (the cyphertext), yet when the proper key is input ('//sparse matrix transpose'), you get the relevant segment of the original function (the plaintext) back.

We've even seen this with stable diffusion image generation, where specific watermarks can be re-created (decrypted?) deterministically with the proper input.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#454

Post by nickelpro »

klabb3 wrote: post #400
drvortex wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on…

> Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. This is kinda smug, because it overcomplicates things for no reason, and only serves as a faux technocentric strawman. It just muddies the waters for a sane discussion of the topic, which people can participate in without a CS degree. The AI models of today are very simple to explain: its a product built from…

It's not something to dismiss but it is something that has already been addressed. Authors Guild v Google. Google Books is built upon scanning millions of books from libraries without first gaining permission from copyright holders, this was found to not be a violation of copyright.

Building a product on top of copyright works that does not directly distribute those works is legal. More specifically, a computer consuming a copyright work is not a violation of copyright.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#455

Post by dmix »

bogwog wrote: post #199
nrb wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have a problem with it, so long as the material it trained on was with explicit permission/license and not potentially in violation of copyright? That's where the line is for it to be suspect IMO.

This is what I hope comes out of the lawsuit. If a company wants to sell an AI model, they need to own all of the training data. It can't be "fair use" to take other peoples' works at zero cost, and use it to build a commercial product without compensation. And maybe models trained on public data should be in the public domain, so that AI research can happen without requiring massive investments to obtain the trainin…

There has to be a reasonable context here. Even if it’s trained on proprietary code it rarely ever is inserting that code directly in a way that is at all relevant to how it was used in the past.

Obvious licensing needs to be respected and it shouldn’t be hard to solve that problem. But 99.9% of code isn’t some unique algorithm, it’s gluing libraries and setting up basic structures.

Most of the examples I’ve seen done line up with the reality of code completion tools. Code is rarely valuable when broken up into its small parts.

Even copying a full codebase is rarely enough to draw value from… there’s way more to a software business than the raw code. But that’s a different problem.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#456

Post by stovenctl »

The comparison I would draw is it's a statistics based search engine for code.

Sometimes the query is the first half of a small statement that we can fill in with common patterns. Useful, fair.

Sometimes the query is a signature like `fn fast_inv_sqrt` that copies someone's code and doesn't attribute it.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#457

Post by ouid »

drvortex wrote: post #308
Cort3z wrote: post #270

I’m not a lawyer, but here is why I believe a class action lawsuit is correct; “AI” is just fancy speak for “complex math program”. If I make a program that’s simply given an arbitrary input then, thought math operations, outputs Microsoft copyright code, am I in the clear just because it’s “AI”? I think they would sue the heck out of me if I did that, and I believe the opposite should be true as well. I’m sure my ow…

Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on…

it is essentially a weighted sum of your code and other copyright holders code. Do not let the mystique of AI fool you. Copilot does not learn, it glues.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#458

Post by vkou »

drvortex wrote: post #308
Cort3z wrote: post #270

I’m not a lawyer, but here is why I believe a class action lawsuit is correct; “AI” is just fancy speak for “complex math program”. If I make a program that’s simply given an arbitrary input then, thought math operations, outputs Microsoft copyright code, am I in the clear just because it’s “AI”? I think they would sue the heck out of me if I did that, and I believe the opposite should be true as well. I’m sure my ow…

Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on…

> It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context.

So what? Why shouldn't we update the rules of copyright to catch up to advances in technology?

Prior to the invention of the printing press, we didn't have copyright law. Nobody could stop you from taking any book you liked, and paying a scribe to reproduce it, word for word, over and over again. You could then lend, gift, or sell those copies.

The printing press introduced nothing novel to this process! It simply increased the rate at which ink could be put to pages. And yet, in response to its invention, copyright law was created, that banned the most obvious and simple application of this new technology.

I think it's entirely reasonable for copyright law to be updated, to ban the most obvious and simple application of this new technology, both for generating images, and code.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#459

Post by heavyset_go »

OJFord wrote: post #450
heavyset_go wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying AI is computational statistics on steroids for a while, and I think that's an apt generalization of what ML is.

That oughtn't be controversial, in fact I wouldn't even bother with 'on steroids', implying it's a slightly different/morphed thing. The way I learnt it (very slightly, at university, not a particular focus) it was abundantly clear it was just stats.

I bring the steroids thing up because it's only relatively recently that we've had the massive computing power at our finger tips that we do now. We discovered the foundations of our current ML techniques a relatively long time ago, it's only been recently that we've been able to throw data centers full of powerful GPUs and whatnot at them.

Re: We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot

#460

Post by tevon »

drvortex wrote: post #308
Cort3z wrote: post #270

I’m not a lawyer, but here is why I believe a class action lawsuit is correct; “AI” is just fancy speak for “complex math program”. If I make a program that’s simply given an arbitrary input then, thought math operations, outputs Microsoft copyright code, am I in the clear just because it’s “AI”? I think they would sue the heck out of me if I did that, and I believe the opposite should be true as well. I’m sure my ow…

Your code is not in that thing. That thing has merely read your code and adjusted its own generative code. It is not directly using your code any more than programmers are using print statements. A book can be copyrighted, the vocabulary of language cannot. A particular program can be copyrighted, but snippets of it cannot, especially when they are used in a different context. And that is why this lawsuit is dead on…

I agree.

If I read JRR Tolkien and then go and write a fantasy novel following a unexpected hero on his dangerous quest to undo evil, I haven't infringed, even if I use some of Tolkien's better turns of phrase.

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