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They did! In the faq which I can't find anymore they said: >GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it su

by rckstr 5y ago

They did! In the faq which I can't find anymore they said: >GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it suggests is uniquely generated and has never been seen before. We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set.

caconym_ 5y ago
This actually seems like an explicit acknowledgement that regurgitation is possible, and not remotely a claim that it is "simply not possible". It stands to reason that cases where people are intentionally trying to produce regurgitation will strongly overlap with the minority of cases where it actually happens. So I think we are probably suffering from some selection bias in discussions on HN and similar forums--that might be unavoidable, and it certainly stimulates some interesting discussion, but we should try to avoid misrepresenting the product as a whole and/or what its creators have said about it.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  I think only Github's lawyers would interpret what GP posted the way you did. Looks like weasel wording to make such an interpretation possible, while making customers believe that code is more or less synthesized in realtime. "Snippets" makes one think one or two lines of code, not entire functions and classes.
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    I think that until somebody shows that Copilot is willing to copy distinctive code fragments verbatim, unprompted, with a high occurrence rate, I'm not going to start accusing Github of building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit. I've seen no evidence of that, and in absence of evidence I prefer to remain neutral and open-minded. How would that work, anyway? Rare, distinctive code forms seem much more difficult for an ML thing to suggest with a high-ish confidence level, since there won't be much training data. The Quake thing makes sense because it's one of the most famous sections of code in the world, and probably exists in thousands of places in the public Github corpus. I'm emphasizing distinctive because a lot of boilerplate takes up a lot of room, but still doesn't make a reasonable argument for copyright infringement when yours looks like somebody else's.
    - sombremesa 5y ago
      It looks like you're responding to the wrong comment. I don't recall alleging that Github is "building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit".
      - caconym_ 5y ago
        > I think only Github's lawyers would interpret what GP posted the way you did. Looks like weasel wording to make such an interpretation possible, So what are you suggesting here, except that Github is attempting a legal sleight-of-hand to hide real infringement? > while making customers believe that code is more or less synthesized in realtime. What are you suggesting here except that Github is (essentially) lying to customers, making them believe something that is substantially untrue? When I say "building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit", I am talking about a scenario in which they are sweeping legitimate IP concerns under the rug with bad faith legal weaselry and misrepresentation of how the product functions, etc., to chase profit. I do not see how that is substantially different from the implications of your comment, especially in the context of this subthread. Could you enlighten me as to how your intended meaning substantially differs from my interpretation? If you don't mean to accuse Github of malfeasance, we probably don't have much to discuss.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
There's a risk of confirmation bias though, because the search was performed by the developers of the system who are strongly motivated to find no problem with their work. I have done this to myself many, many times. I look, carefully, at length, for problems with my work until I satisfy myself that there's no obvious problem with it. Then someone else points out the obvious problem I was overlooking. Actually, this has happened often enough and it's painful enough that I learned to really look nowadays. In the context of the search for "snippets that are verbatim from the training set" there's all sorts of things that can go wrong. The search (a regex search I think?) can be unintentionally made too weak to catch obvious cases. Or too strong, probably. The search for "snippets that are verbatim from the training set" may ignore snippets that are 80% verbatim. Or the code generated during the experiment can be generated in such a way as to only generate verbatim snippets very rarely, contrary to more typical use. And so on and so forth. There's so many ways to fool oneself when looking for errors in one's own work. Edit: They explain their search methodology and with only a quick look I gave it, it seems legit, but it was a quick look. The devil is in the details, yes? Maybe people who are really interested in this issue should take a closer look.

by rckstr 5y ago

caconym_ 5y ago

This actually seems like an explicit acknowledgement that regurgitation is possible, and not remotely a claim that it is "simply not possible". It stands to reason that cases where people are intentionally trying to produce regurgitation will strongly overlap with the minority of cases where it actually happens. So I think we are probably suffering from some selection bias in discussions on HN and similar forums--that might be unavoidable, and it certainly stimulates some interesting discussion, but we should try to avoid misrepresenting the product as a whole and/or what its creators have said about it.

sombremesa 5y ago
I think only Github's lawyers would interpret what GP posted the way you did. Looks like weasel wording to make such an interpretation possible, while making customers believe that code is more or less synthesized in realtime. "Snippets" makes one think one or two lines of code, not entire functions and classes.
- caconym_ 5y ago
  I think that until somebody shows that Copilot is willing to copy distinctive code fragments verbatim, unprompted, with a high occurrence rate, I'm not going to start accusing Github of building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit. I've seen no evidence of that, and in absence of evidence I prefer to remain neutral and open-minded. How would that work, anyway? Rare, distinctive code forms seem much more difficult for an ML thing to suggest with a high-ish confidence level, since there won't be much training data. The Quake thing makes sense because it's one of the most famous sections of code in the world, and probably exists in thousands of places in the public Github corpus. I'm emphasizing distinctive because a lot of boilerplate takes up a lot of room, but still doesn't make a reasonable argument for copyright infringement when yours looks like somebody else's.
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    It looks like you're responding to the wrong comment. I don't recall alleging that Github is "building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit".
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      > I think only Github's lawyers would interpret what GP posted the way you did. Looks like weasel wording to make such an interpretation possible, So what are you suggesting here, except that Github is attempting a legal sleight-of-hand to hide real infringement? > while making customers believe that code is more or less synthesized in realtime. What are you suggesting here except that Github is (essentially) lying to customers, making them believe something that is substantially untrue? When I say "building an engine to cynically exploit the IP rights of open source copyright holders for profit", I am talking about a scenario in which they are sweeping legitimate IP concerns under the rug with bad faith legal weaselry and misrepresentation of how the product functions, etc., to chase profit. I do not see how that is substantially different from the implications of your comment, especially in the context of this subthread. Could you enlighten me as to how your intended meaning substantially differs from my interpretation? If you don't mean to accuse Github of malfeasance, we probably don't have much to discuss.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

There's a risk of confirmation bias though, because the search was performed by the developers of the system who are strongly motivated to find no problem with their work. I have done this to myself many, many times. I look, carefully, at length, for problems with my work until I satisfy myself that there's no obvious problem with it. Then someone else points out the obvious problem I was overlooking. Actually, this has happened often enough and it's painful enough that I learned to really look nowadays. In the context of the search for "snippets that are verbatim from the training set" there's all sorts of things that can go wrong. The search (a regex search I think?) can be unintentionally made too weak to catch obvious cases. Or too strong, probably. The search for "snippets that are verbatim from the training set" may ignore snippets that are 80% verbatim. Or the code generated during the experiment can be generated in such a way as to only generate verbatim snippets very rarely, contrary to more typical use. And so on and so forth. There's so many ways to fool oneself when looking for errors in one's own work. Edit: They explain their search methodology and with only a quick look I gave it, it seems legit, but it was a quick look. The devil is in the details, yes? Maybe people who are really interested in this issue should take a closer look.