GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#781

Post by CapsAdmin » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 7:44 AM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #667

_ryanjsalva wrote: post #313

Howdy, folks. Ryan here from the GitHub Copilot product team. I don’t know how the original poster’s machine was set-up, but I’m gonna throw out a few theories about what could be happening. If similar code is open in your VS Code project, Copilot can draw context from those adjacent files. This can make it appear that the public model was trained on your private code, when in fact the context is drawn from local fil…

This response expresses some of the things, that are to criticize about MS' Copilot project. But also I don't like the instant attempt to subtle discredit the report by dropping something like "I don’t know how the original poster’s machine was set-up" in the first (or second, if you want to be technical) phrase. First consider that you made a mistake yourself, _then_ ask, whether the fault could be on the other side…

> How comes, that Copilot hasn't indicated, where the code came from?

I can't say for sure about copilot but in general you don't have that kind of information. The problem is a bit like trying to add debug symbols back to some highly optimized binary program.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#782

Post by Jochim » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 8:03 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #528

krageon wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The luddites were right. Everything is worse because they did not win, which is obvious if you spend a second thinking about what them not winning means: more concentrated wealth, more disenfranchised workers.

Tax is supposed to deal with this to some extent but the rich have the resources to avoid it!

We've also steadily lowered tax rates over the last 50 years. Many countries are at historically low tax burdens despite rising inequality and no evidence of this improving economic growth.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#783

Post by rodet » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 8:52 AM UTC

ben-schaaf wrote: post #543

siilats wrote: post #507

I think this will be solved like YouTube music. I as copilot user don’t mind paying 0.1cents for a good matrix transform and the code owner doesn’t mind receiving 0.1cents from thousands of users and github gets 30%

That's not compatible with the licenses used by software projects, especially GPL.

Snarky details ;)

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#784

Post by robertlagrant » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #731

robertlagrant wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was described wasn't the principal-agent problem. If I'm an employee and my job becomes simpler or more productive through an automation investment by someone else, I don't think I deserve part of the increased profit unless I'm part of a profit-sharing agreement that would also see me absorb losses.

> unless I'm part of a profit-sharing agreement that would also see me absorb losses And how many workers even have the possibility of an arrangement like this, i.e. a worker-owned cooperative? Yes, that is exactly the point. When a labour-saving technological development comes along, it's payday to the capital-having class and dreary times for the labour-doing class.

And it's good for everyone down the line, because the good being produced becomes more affordable and better. It might be hard to zoom out from these current times when we can expect continual progress, but this is one of the only reasons why anything ever gets better.

I'm from the UK, and we used to make motorbikes. They got - correctly - outcompeted by Japanese bikes in the 1950s that were built with more modern investment and tooling. If Japan hadn't done that, we'd have more motorcycle jobs in the UK, and terrible motorcycles that still leaked oil because the seam of the crankcase would still be vertical and not horizontal.

I'm not saying anything about this process is perfect and pain-free, but it seems that a lot of the things we have now are because of processes like this. Should Tesla sell through dealerships instead of direct to consumers? I think the answer is, "Tesla should do what's best for its customers", and not "Tesla should act to keep dealership jobs and not worry about what's best for its customers."

Businesses exist for their customers and not their employees, and having just been part of a business that, shall we say, radically downsized, I've seen a little of the pain of that. Thankfully it was a high tech business, and as the best employment protection is other employers, and there are loads of employers wanting tech skills I've seen my great colleagues all get new jobs. But I think it's ultimately disempowering to think of your employer like a superior when it should feel like an equal whose goals happen to coincide with yours for a while.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#785

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:24 AM UTC

b3morales wrote: post #747

minhazm wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does address it, although not that clearly. This happens all the time with news media. They will post a picture and say they got permission from X person, but X person actually didn't even own the copyright in the first place. That doesn't make any of it okay, but it does mean that the organization has legal cover in this case and the worst that will happen is that they'll have to take the content down. In GitHub'…

Turn the parties in this argument around and see if you think it still holds. J. Random Hacker acquires and uses a copy of some of GitHub's, or Microsoft's source. When sued, the defense says that the code was not taken directly from GH/MS, just copied from a newsgroup where it had been posted. Does this get J. off the hook?

Was J using automated methods based on false claims of ownership by the newsgroup posters, with no direct knowledge of the violation? If so J should not be punished.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#786

Post by kevingadd » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:39 AM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #697

kevingadd wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not safe for work, but one example I saw going around: https://twitter.com/ebkim00/status/1579485164442648577 Not sure if this was fed the original image as an input or not. Also seen a couple cases where people explicitly trained a network to imitate an artist's work, like the deceased Kim Jung Gi.

That's clearly lifting style, pose and general location but in each of those there are changes. Even for the original art we could find tons of examples of very similar poses and backgrounds because anime girl in a bathing suit on a beach background isn't that original of an image at the concept level. That pose also is a pretty well worn. This is the problem of applying the idea of ownership to ideas and expression…

I think the key detail is to look at what happened in the bottom left - in the original drawing, there's dark blue (due to lighting) cloth filling the scene, but the network has instead generated oddly-hued water there, even though on the right side there's sand from the beach shore. There's seemingly no geometric representation driving the AI so it ended up turning clothing into mystery ocean water when synthesizing an image that (for whatever reason) looked like the original one. It's an interesting error to me because it only looks Wrong once you notice the sand on the right.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#787

Post by chopin » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #735

aziaziazi wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Durability, quality and reparability. Most fabrics build today are so fragile and needs to be replaced soon, despite the advance in material and weaving. Most highly qualified workers loves what they do and would stand for keeping they’re output quality up. On the contrary interchangeable cheap workers have no real incentive to that. The factory’s manager is left alone in charge to balance quality versus cheapness, a…

> Most fabrics build today are so fragile and needs to be replaced soon Because that's what people want. You can get high quality clothes for much cheaper than you could in 1816, but people prefer disposable clothes so they can change their look more often. This is just producers responding to demand.

Properly sourcing high quality stuff is incredibly difficult for consumers. Price is not a good discriminator, unfortunately. This is a problem everywhere but for clothes in particular.

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#788

Post by robertlagrant » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:52 AM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #703

robertlagrant wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But - the only reason anyone makes money (other than tax money) is because they're useful to someone else. Almost all of the clothing industry companies make money from large numbers of people buying their clothes. So they are useful to us. Similarly, the reason Europe put 30% of its populace "out of work" by industrialising agriculture is why we don't have to all go work in fields all day. It is a massive net positi…

> But - the only reason anyone makes money (other than tax money) is because they're useful to someone else. Almost all of the clothing industry companies make money from large numbers of people buying their clothes. So they are useful to us. No, that's not true. Capitalists make money from simply owning things , not because they're necessarily doing anything useful.

> No, that's not true. Capitalists make money from simply owning things, not because they're necessarily doing anything useful.

Can you elaborate on this? How can I become a capitalist so all my possessions start earning me money?

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#789

Post by afiori » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:58 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #727

elcomet wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's very unlikely, they said and repeated that they are not using private code. People catching them lying on this would be very bad for GitHub.

This is some highly impressive logic right here. Proposition: "They don't use private code". Proof: "They said they don't use private code. Either the private code appearing is published somewhere else, or they are using private code. Lying would be bad. Therefore the code is published somewhere else, and they don't use private code".

I would say that the logic is more like:

Proposition: "They either do not use private code or they did something very very stupid."

Proof: "Not using private code is very easy (for example google does not train its models on workspace users' data, which is why they get inferior features) and they promised multiple time not to use private code so doing in would be hard to justify"

Re: GitHub Copilot, with “public code” blocked, emits my copyrighted code

#790

Post by elcomet » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #760

elcomet wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's very unlikely, they said and repeated that they are not using private code. People catching them lying on this would be very bad for GitHub.

Bugs and unexpected behaviour catch us all. I’m not saying they’re intentionally lying, but that one possible explanation is it looking through non public repositories

They would definitely notice such a bug. This would at least double or triple the amount of data they use. This is not something you can do by mistake.