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> I, as a human being, have trained by reading code, much of which is covered by licenses that are somehow not compatible with code I'm writing. Am I violating

> I, as a human being, have trained by reading code, much of which is covered by licenses that are somehow not compatible with code I'm writing. Am I violating licenses? As someone who has taught students in ICT a quick rule of thumb was that I picked a piece of text that I suspected, wrapped it in doublequotes and put it into a search engine. 9/10 times - possibly more - of the times I had that feeling it was true. 17 year olds don't write like seasoned reporters most of the time. Obviously there needs to be some independent tought in there as well, but for teenagers I put the line at not copying verbatim, and to cite sources. As we've seen demonstrated again and again copilot breaks both my minimum standard rules for teenagers: it copies verbatim and it doesn't cite sources. I say that is pretty bad. If the system had actually learned the structure and applied what it had learned to recreate the same it would be a whole different story. But in this case it is obvious that the AI isn't writing the code - at least not all the time, it is instead choosing what to copy - verbatim.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
It’s not AI it is ML. GPT-3 is a very large ML model. It does not reason. It’s a statistical machine.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  ML is a subset of AI, in any defintion that I've seen. And both are needlessly anthropomorphizing what are currently simple statistical or rule-based deduction engines. GPT-3 is no more 'intelligent' in the human sense than it is 'learning' in the human sense.
- cnity 5y ago
  By this logic there is no such thing as AI.
  - Eikon 5y ago
    There's no such thing as AI.
    - cnity 5y ago
      Can you expand on this? Clearly the term exists. I have a degree in AI, do the concepts I learned at university not exist? What does you mean when you say AI does not exist? Do you mean that the terms, algorithms, concepts, and applications found in the field labelled "Artificial Intelligence" should not be called as such? I have a feeling you are simply playing a semantic game, though, in which case we are likely to talk past each other. Edit: I suspect you may be conflating artificial general intelligence[0] with AI [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
qayxc 5y ago
> But in this case it is obvious that the AI isn't writing the code - at least not all the time, it is instead choosing what to copy - verbatim. I still don't see any problem with that. If it's larger sections (e.g. entire NON-TRIVIAL function bodies), those can be filtered or correctly attributed after inference. So that's just a technicality. Smaller snippets and trivial or mechanical implementations (generated code, API calls, API access patterns) aren't subject to any kind of protection anyway. int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { Lines like that hold no intellectual value and can be found in GPL'ed code. It can be argued that that's a verbatim reproduction, yet it's not a violation of any kind in any reasonable context. Where do you draw the line and how would you be able to - automatically even! - decide what does and does not represent a significant verbatim reproduction?
- skinkestek 5y ago
  >I still don't see any problem with that. If it's larger sections (e.g. entire NON-TRIVIAL function bodies), those can be filtered or correctly attributed after inference. So that's just a technicality. Today copilot does what it does. I've never heard Microsoft defend anyone running afoul of some of their licensing details with "they can fix it later, it is just a technicality". I think this should go both ways? No? > Smaller snippets and trivial or mechanical implementations (generated code, API calls, API access patterns) aren't subject to any kind of protection anyway. int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { > Lines like that hold no intellectual value and can be found in GPL'ed code. It can be argued that that's a verbatim reproduction, yet it's not a violation of any kind in any reasonable context. Totally agree. Edit: otherwise we'd all be in serious trouble. > Where do you draw the line and how would you be able to - automatically even! - decide what does and does not represent a significant verbatim reproduction? I am not a lawyer but I guess many can agree that somewhere before copying functions verbatim, comments literally copied as well for good measure, somewhere before that point there is a line. On the other hand: if there was significant evidence that the AI was doing creative work, not just (or partially just) copying then I think I would say it was OK even if it arrived at that knowledge by reading copyrighted works. Edit: how could we know if it was doing creative work? First because it wouldn't be literally the same. Literal copying is liter copying regardless of if it is done using Xerox, paid writers, infinite monkeys om infinite typewriters, "AI" or actual strong AI. After that it becomes a bit more fuzzy as more possibilities open up: - for student works I look at how well adapted it is to the question at hand: a good answer from Stackoverflow, attributed properly and adapted to the coding style of the code base? Absolutely OK. Copying together a bunch of stuff from examples in the frameworks website? Fine. Reading through all the docs and look at how a number of high profile projects have done it in their open source solution, updating the README.md with info on why this solution was chosen? Now you are looking for a top grade in my class. (of course IBM will probably not want you to work on their compiler though if you admit that you've studied OpenJDKs, or so I have heard.)

CyberRabbi 5y ago

It’s not AI it is ML. GPT-3 is a very large ML model. It does not reason. It’s a statistical machine.

tsimionescu 5y ago
ML is a subset of AI, in any defintion that I've seen. And both are needlessly anthropomorphizing what are currently simple statistical or rule-based deduction engines. GPT-3 is no more 'intelligent' in the human sense than it is 'learning' in the human sense.
cnity 5y ago
By this logic there is no such thing as AI.
- Eikon 5y ago
  There's no such thing as AI.
  - cnity 5y ago
    Can you expand on this? Clearly the term exists. I have a degree in AI, do the concepts I learned at university not exist? What does you mean when you say AI does not exist? Do you mean that the terms, algorithms, concepts, and applications found in the field labelled "Artificial Intelligence" should not be called as such? I have a feeling you are simply playing a semantic game, though, in which case we are likely to talk past each other. Edit: I suspect you may be conflating artificial general intelligence[0] with AI [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...

qayxc 5y ago

> But in this case it is obvious that the AI isn't writing the code - at least not all the time, it is instead choosing what to copy - verbatim. I still don't see any problem with that. If it's larger sections (e.g. entire NON-TRIVIAL function bodies), those can be filtered or correctly attributed after inference. So that's just a technicality. Smaller snippets and trivial or mechanical implementations (generated code, API calls, API access patterns) aren't subject to any kind of protection anyway. int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { Lines like that hold no intellectual value and can be found in GPL'ed code. It can be argued that that's a verbatim reproduction, yet it's not a violation of any kind in any reasonable context. Where do you draw the line and how would you be able to - automatically even! - decide what does and does not represent a significant verbatim reproduction?

skinkestek 5y ago
>I still don't see any problem with that. If it's larger sections (e.g. entire NON-TRIVIAL function bodies), those can be filtered or correctly attributed after inference. So that's just a technicality. Today copilot does what it does. I've never heard Microsoft defend anyone running afoul of some of their licensing details with "they can fix it later, it is just a technicality". I think this should go both ways? No? > Smaller snippets and trivial or mechanical implementations (generated code, API calls, API access patterns) aren't subject to any kind of protection anyway. int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { > Lines like that hold no intellectual value and can be found in GPL'ed code. It can be argued that that's a verbatim reproduction, yet it's not a violation of any kind in any reasonable context. Totally agree. Edit: otherwise we'd all be in serious trouble. > Where do you draw the line and how would you be able to - automatically even! - decide what does and does not represent a significant verbatim reproduction? I am not a lawyer but I guess many can agree that somewhere before copying functions verbatim, comments literally copied as well for good measure, somewhere before that point there is a line. On the other hand: if there was significant evidence that the AI was doing creative work, not just (or partially just) copying then I think I would say it was OK even if it arrived at that knowledge by reading copyrighted works. Edit: how could we know if it was doing creative work? First because it wouldn't be literally the same. Literal copying is liter copying regardless of if it is done using Xerox, paid writers, infinite monkeys om infinite typewriters, "AI" or actual strong AI. After that it becomes a bit more fuzzy as more possibilities open up: - for student works I look at how well adapted it is to the question at hand: a good answer from Stackoverflow, attributed properly and adapted to the coding style of the code base? Absolutely OK. Copying together a bunch of stuff from examples in the frameworks website? Fine. Reading through all the docs and look at how a number of high profile projects have done it in their open source solution, updating the README.md with info on why this solution was chosen? Now you are looking for a top grade in my class. (of course IBM will probably not want you to work on their compiler though if you admit that you've studied OpenJDKs, or so I have heard.)