8 ms·

The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way,

The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" On a tangential note, I always find the discussions surrounding FOSS licenses and copyright rather amusing in a sad way. There's a certain kind of entitlement a lot of people feel towards FOSS that they certainly do not express towards proprietary software and I imagine this a great source of the resentment and burn-out FOSS maintainers feel.

TuringNYC 4y ago
>> "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" IANAL, but isnt the concept of "derived data" pretty standard? You dont need to copy data for it to be infringing. I've tackled derived data clauses regularly when negotiating data contracts at work and there is always verbiage and discussion around it (e.g., are we allowed to publish an average of the purchased data)
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  An average is not related to artistic aspects of the data and so can't be a derivative in the copyright sense (based on international law - one of the principle Conventions is fully titled "the Berne convention for the protection of literary and artistic laws", that's because copyright protects literary and artistic works). Provided you have rights to access a body of statistics, then copyright has nothing to say -- save overreaching national caselaw (!) -- on your derivation of mathematical, technical, or scientific data from that work. But a contractual clause, in general, doesn't care about copyright; of you've contracted not to derive data from a work then that's orthogonal to copyright. IANA(IP)L, this is my opinion and unrelated to my employment.
jhugo 4y ago
> The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" Of course it isn't the same as a human programmer doing anything. It's a complex piece of software, which we happen to misuse the term "AI" to describe, but it is not intelligent.
- mtkhaos 4y ago
  Technically just advanced indexing of code snippets
  - vinnymac 4y ago
    Precisely. I don't see a difference between what Google indexes on its search engine, and what CoPilot can recommend. Google has been and still does get slapped on the wrist when they don't respond to take down requests. It seems this is missing from CoPilot currently, and will open them up to a number of lawsuits in the future if it continues to operate as it does.
    - merpnderp 4y ago
      Except Google isn’t creating anything new, Copilot is. I’ve had it kick out some very interesting short stories based on Sherlock Holmes, so if I published those would they infringe?
      - jhugo 4y ago
        You have no idea where they came from, or whether they are as new as you assume. Maybe they'd infringe, maybe they wouldn't!
        merpnderp 4y ago
        Google returned nothing which contained exact matches of some of the more interesting dialogue. It would be a serious find - worthy of a paper - to disprove that GPT-3 is generating novel text/code.
bencollier49 4y ago
Perhaps it's a little bit like employing a human programmer with an eidetic memory who occasionally remembers entire largish functions. If he were able to remember a large enough piece of copyrighted code, and reused it, then it still wouldn't be fair use, even if he changed a variable name here or there, or the license message.
- Longlius 4y ago
  Yeah, that's definitely the impression I get from the few Copilot examples I've seen. I've not personally used Copilot so I refrained from making absolute statements about its behavior in my top comment. But I think the conclusion most people are settling on is that it's definitely infringing.
  - pmarreck 4y ago
    I've used Copilot for months and honestly it's become one of my most favorite inventions in all of programming- and this is key- even when it screws up (such as by suggesting Ruby-syntax code to autocomplete Elixir code). It tickles the "childlike joy" funnybone in me, the same one that got me into programming to begin with. I don't know how long it will take for typing "#ANSI yellow" (for example) and autocompleting to the right codes to get old, or every time it autocompletes anything considered "boilerplate," but it hasn't, yet! You know, pretty much all of programming can be summed up as "tedious labor elimination," and this tool directs that same labor elimination at the work of programming itself (I no longer have to constantly google syntax idiosyncrasies etc.), and NOW coders are pissed? I don't get it. Eat your own dog food, people, because this is what it looks and tastes like. As to the copyright infringement or licensing-violation claims, I have yet to see it autocomplete an entire algorithm correctly, or one copied verbatim from somewhere, although that could be mitigated. You still have to pay attention (kind of like Tesla autopilot), it's not going to eliminate your job.
    - Longlius 4y ago
      No one is complaining about copilot making programming easier or automating it. We're upset because it's quite literally infringing on intellectual property. Infringing on intellectual property that's been set aside for the exclusive use of the commons.
vslira 4y ago
On your tangential note: I always assumed many in the FLOSS side are actually against most cases of copyright as applied to software, but since it is the regulatory standard, they put a strong emphasis on making it work for their purposes, thus the somewhat ironic “copyleft”. It’s a “don’t hate the player hate the game” situation for them
- toyg 4y ago
  Those people these days are a vanishing minority. This is not the early-00s anymore. The reality is that, nowadays, the overwhelming majority of developers touches FOSS code every day and just assumes they're entitled to use it as they see fit. The folks that came up with "copyleft" or care about licenses, are very much not in the driving seat. Blame FAANGs and their hatred for GPL.
- Longlius 4y ago
  This is definitely the orthodox take. If shared source code was the norm and software wasn't subject to copyright (or really if either of those two conditions were met), there'd be no need for FOSS as an ideology. The purpose of copyleft is to ensure that there's a permanent bulwark against code meant for the commons being co-opted by proprietary software vendors and having changes walled off from the community who created the software in the first place.
  - pabs3 4y ago
    Source code is essential to FOSS, a public domain binary-only copy of Microsoft Windows definitely would not be FOSS. This is the second item of the open source definition. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
    - account42 4y ago
      Sure, that is a useful condition and is a no brainer to add if you need leverage copyright anyway. But would it be enough to spur the open source movement on its own if you could legally decompile all binaries and redistribute that? Probably not. Its not like source vs. binary is a clear distinction - between code obfuscation, generated code, transpilation, etc. there is a lot of wiggle room what should or should not be OK.
homarp 4y ago
take Windows NT source, train your local version, deploy it on the internet, advertize it does Windows code completion wait for Microsodlft lawyer to get answer to your original question
jeroenhd 4y ago
A human who will type out the fast inverse square root algorithm line by line won't be exempt from copyright/license infringement just because he remembered it from the top of their head. However, using the same concepts is likely to be fine outside silly jurisdictions where software patents are a thing. The difference is that AI isn't able to grasp concepts, it's only capable of rehashing patterns. If it is able to understand concepts then it should be shut down and researched immediately, because it's either close to gaining consciousness or already has done so. The core of copilot is a file or a block of memory laying out a bunch of floating points that get processed and turned into code. This arrangement of floats is derived from source code, with licenses and copyright notices. I don't think it's any different from turning code into a compiled program. Any developer will understand that a compiled version of GPL code is a derived work and subject to the GPL license. Why would a compiler that turns code into floats be any different? Sure, those floats get mixed up with the floats from other source code, but linking to GPL'd code does something very similar and is also covered by the license. It's possible to consider copilot similar to hashing: a SHA hash of a binary isn't subject to the binary's license, that'd be silly. However, hashes are inherently one-way, and copilot isn't. A question I'd like to ask Microsoft is "if I steal the Windows source code and train an AI on it, can that AI be freely distributed and used for Wine/ReactOS/etc?" If Microsoft sticks to the stance that AI isn't subject to the licenses on software then a leaked source AI should be fine, but if they want to protect their intellectual property then they will send cease and desist letters to anyone even thinking about using such an AI model for code completion. My expectation is that Microsoft will act against such an AI. Regardless, the fact that Github did not ask permission or provide an opt out before training started is a huge middle finger to all open source developers. Even if they can get away with this stuff legally, this approach has surely offended many open source developers who want big tech companies to abide by their code licenses. I don't do much open source work myself but I've been offended by the whole process from the day copilot rolled out and I don't believe I'm alone in this.
- ImprobableTruth 4y ago
  I'm curious as to what distinction you draw between rehashing patterns and grasping a concept.
dal 4y ago
This kind of reminds me of when someone reverse engineers a piece of software to document interfaces, protocols or APIs for the purpose of writing compatible software. Then a second person not involved in the RE process implement compatible software from the documentation the first person wrote. This is to avoid any contamination and verbatim copies of code. Once you have read a piece of code there is a risk of "contamination" and you will be influenced by it. It does not matter if you directly copy it, write it out from memory or use an AI to regurgitate it. It will be a copy of the code. To me this is very clear.
- dayjah 4y ago
  This sounds like “taint” in the M&A space. I’ve very limited experience of it and would be interested in hearing more from the better informed folks on this topic! My limited experience: my then-employer opted not to acquire a company after doing due diligence. Ultimately we decided that the price of acquisition (both paid out, and also incurred in internal time) was below the cost of building a comparable product ourselves. As the dev who did the tech portion of the due diligence I was now “tainted” by my knowledge of their system. As a result I could not work directly on the effort to build our own comparable solution.
  - account42 4y ago
    Another example is Wine: Anyone who has seen the Windows source code is not allowed to contribute [0] [0] https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Who_can.27t_contribute_to_Wine.3F https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Who_can.27t_contribute...
monkeybutton 4y ago
Just reading certain code is enough to taint a human programmer though. Some companies have policies against hiring developers with experience on some OSS projects because they have their own clean room implementation they want to protect.
- usrn 4y ago
  Right. I don't see any way this is legal.
- rag-hav 4y ago
  > Some companies have policies against hiring developers with experience on some OSS projects Can you please elaborate on this?
  - monkeybutton 4y ago
    They're basically following this process to build their products: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
  - Sateeshm 4y ago
    Season 1 of halt and catch fire
- Zedmor 4y ago
  Never heard of single one. I bet you just invented it.
TrustInCopilot 4y ago
> On a tangential note, I always find the discussions surrounding FOSS licenses and copyright rather amusing in a sad way. There's a certain kind of entitlement a lot of people feel towards FOSS that they certainly do not express towards proprietary software and I imagine this a great source of the resentment and burn-out FOSS maintainers feel. Definitely. Many of my acquaintances complaining about Github Copilot without trying it themselves regularly pirate movies, shows and music. They also always cheer if there is some court ruling against Facebook or Google, no matter what the actual case is even about. > The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" It seems to me that the regurgitation only happens if you post the first half of the code, expecting the second half. I imagine that the software sees how several hundred repositories (which are all forks) have a very similar pattern and tells you the best fitting approximation of how they continue, which is again very similar. In the future I can definitely see Github updating their license and some kind of exodus by FOSSers towards GitLab. But I believe that many open source projects will just put up with it, similar to how Youtubers and Twitch streamers want to stay on the premier platform.
DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
I think the problem goes a bit deeper than that. From an IP perspective, I think it's reasonable to consider that training an AI on some form of work is using said work to build a new one, just like it would be if it was manually copied in or reproduced. The problem is that, iirc, GPL didn't consider this at all and still uses language focused on copying code, so something like copilot might slip through the cracks of those definitions. Then again, the license uses this language when it allows usage of the code in the first place, so one could say that either a) this usage is covered by the license, in which case all conditions apply, or b) it is not covered by the license, in which case... github wouldn't be allowed to use the code at all. To give an analogy: I think feeding code into an AI is essentially analogous to compiling the code. A machine turns it into something more usable and the original human-written content isn't part of the result anymore, but the intellectual property gets dragged through the process nonetheless. Why would it be any different just because the mechanism of transforming the code into executable software gets a bit more complicated through the usage of AI?
dwild 4y ago
> Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? It literally can't do it in an "in a non-infringing way" as it wasn't made to do it "in a non-infringing way". People were able to get copy-pasted code verbatim. It means it does not know whether what it does infringe on the GPL or not. Let say you find a human that never knew anything about copyright and you show him a bunch of Disney movies and you ask him to make you a movie and he literally copy one of their movie. Does it make it non-infringing? (Funny thing is, even people aware of copyrights does infringe it... so yeah hard to say even a machine could make some non-infringing content). The solution would be to at least make him aware of copyrights and works with that, but first is it even possible, and seconds, is it even enough... Sadly nothing will ever be done, at least not until it we feed it Disney movies and it start to affect their bottom lines.

TuringNYC 4y ago

>> "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" IANAL, but isnt the concept of "derived data" pretty standard? You dont need to copy data for it to be infringing. I've tackled derived data clauses regularly when negotiating data contracts at work and there is always verbiage and discussion around it (e.g., are we allowed to publish an average of the purchased data)

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
An average is not related to artistic aspects of the data and so can't be a derivative in the copyright sense (based on international law - one of the principle Conventions is fully titled "the Berne convention for the protection of literary and artistic laws", that's because copyright protects literary and artistic works). Provided you have rights to access a body of statistics, then copyright has nothing to say -- save overreaching national caselaw (!) -- on your derivation of mathematical, technical, or scientific data from that work. But a contractual clause, in general, doesn't care about copyright; of you've contracted not to derive data from a work then that's orthogonal to copyright. IANA(IP)L, this is my opinion and unrelated to my employment.

jhugo 4y ago

> The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" Of course it isn't the same as a human programmer doing anything. It's a complex piece of software, which we happen to misuse the term "AI" to describe, but it is not intelligent.

mtkhaos 4y ago
Technically just advanced indexing of code snippets
- vinnymac 4y ago
  Precisely. I don't see a difference between what Google indexes on its search engine, and what CoPilot can recommend. Google has been and still does get slapped on the wrist when they don't respond to take down requests. It seems this is missing from CoPilot currently, and will open them up to a number of lawsuits in the future if it continues to operate as it does.
  - merpnderp 4y ago
    Except Google isn’t creating anything new, Copilot is. I’ve had it kick out some very interesting short stories based on Sherlock Holmes, so if I published those would they infringe?
    - jhugo 4y ago
      You have no idea where they came from, or whether they are as new as you assume. Maybe they'd infringe, maybe they wouldn't!
      - merpnderp 4y ago
        Google returned nothing which contained exact matches of some of the more interesting dialogue. It would be a serious find - worthy of a paper - to disprove that GPT-3 is generating novel text/code.

bencollier49 4y ago

Perhaps it's a little bit like employing a human programmer with an eidetic memory who occasionally remembers entire largish functions. If he were able to remember a large enough piece of copyrighted code, and reused it, then it still wouldn't be fair use, even if he changed a variable name here or there, or the license message.

Longlius 4y ago
Yeah, that's definitely the impression I get from the few Copilot examples I've seen. I've not personally used Copilot so I refrained from making absolute statements about its behavior in my top comment. But I think the conclusion most people are settling on is that it's definitely infringing.
- pmarreck 4y ago
  I've used Copilot for months and honestly it's become one of my most favorite inventions in all of programming- and this is key- even when it screws up (such as by suggesting Ruby-syntax code to autocomplete Elixir code). It tickles the "childlike joy" funnybone in me, the same one that got me into programming to begin with. I don't know how long it will take for typing "#ANSI yellow" (for example) and autocompleting to the right codes to get old, or every time it autocompletes anything considered "boilerplate," but it hasn't, yet! You know, pretty much all of programming can be summed up as "tedious labor elimination," and this tool directs that same labor elimination at the work of programming itself (I no longer have to constantly google syntax idiosyncrasies etc.), and NOW coders are pissed? I don't get it. Eat your own dog food, people, because this is what it looks and tastes like. As to the copyright infringement or licensing-violation claims, I have yet to see it autocomplete an entire algorithm correctly, or one copied verbatim from somewhere, although that could be mitigated. You still have to pay attention (kind of like Tesla autopilot), it's not going to eliminate your job.
  - Longlius 4y ago
    No one is complaining about copilot making programming easier or automating it. We're upset because it's quite literally infringing on intellectual property. Infringing on intellectual property that's been set aside for the exclusive use of the commons.

vslira 4y ago

On your tangential note: I always assumed many in the FLOSS side are actually against most cases of copyright as applied to software, but since it is the regulatory standard, they put a strong emphasis on making it work for their purposes, thus the somewhat ironic “copyleft”. It’s a “don’t hate the player hate the game” situation for them

toyg 4y ago
Those people these days are a vanishing minority. This is not the early-00s anymore. The reality is that, nowadays, the overwhelming majority of developers touches FOSS code every day and just assumes they're entitled to use it as they see fit. The folks that came up with "copyleft" or care about licenses, are very much not in the driving seat. Blame FAANGs and their hatred for GPL.
Longlius 4y ago
This is definitely the orthodox take. If shared source code was the norm and software wasn't subject to copyright (or really if either of those two conditions were met), there'd be no need for FOSS as an ideology. The purpose of copyleft is to ensure that there's a permanent bulwark against code meant for the commons being co-opted by proprietary software vendors and having changes walled off from the community who created the software in the first place.
- pabs3 4y ago
  Source code is essential to FOSS, a public domain binary-only copy of Microsoft Windows definitely would not be FOSS. This is the second item of the open source definition. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - account42 4y ago
    Sure, that is a useful condition and is a no brainer to add if you need leverage copyright anyway. But would it be enough to spur the open source movement on its own if you could legally decompile all binaries and redistribute that? Probably not. Its not like source vs. binary is a clear distinction - between code obfuscation, generated code, transpilation, etc. there is a lot of wiggle room what should or should not be OK.

homarp 4y ago

take Windows NT source, train your local version, deploy it on the internet, advertize it does Windows code completion wait for Microsodlft lawyer to get answer to your original question

jeroenhd 4y ago

A human who will type out the fast inverse square root algorithm line by line won't be exempt from copyright/license infringement just because he remembered it from the top of their head. However, using the same concepts is likely to be fine outside silly jurisdictions where software patents are a thing. The difference is that AI isn't able to grasp concepts, it's only capable of rehashing patterns. If it is able to understand concepts then it should be shut down and researched immediately, because it's either close to gaining consciousness or already has done so. The core of copilot is a file or a block of memory laying out a bunch of floating points that get processed and turned into code. This arrangement of floats is derived from source code, with licenses and copyright notices. I don't think it's any different from turning code into a compiled program. Any developer will understand that a compiled version of GPL code is a derived work and subject to the GPL license. Why would a compiler that turns code into floats be any different? Sure, those floats get mixed up with the floats from other source code, but linking to GPL'd code does something very similar and is also covered by the license. It's possible to consider copilot similar to hashing: a SHA hash of a binary isn't subject to the binary's license, that'd be silly. However, hashes are inherently one-way, and copilot isn't. A question I'd like to ask Microsoft is "if I steal the Windows source code and train an AI on it, can that AI be freely distributed and used for Wine/ReactOS/etc?" If Microsoft sticks to the stance that AI isn't subject to the licenses on software then a leaked source AI should be fine, but if they want to protect their intellectual property then they will send cease and desist letters to anyone even thinking about using such an AI model for code completion. My expectation is that Microsoft will act against such an AI. Regardless, the fact that Github did not ask permission or provide an opt out before training started is a huge middle finger to all open source developers. Even if they can get away with this stuff legally, this approach has surely offended many open source developers who want big tech companies to abide by their code licenses. I don't do much open source work myself but I've been offended by the whole process from the day copilot rolled out and I don't believe I'm alone in this.

ImprobableTruth 4y ago
I'm curious as to what distinction you draw between rehashing patterns and grasping a concept.

dal 4y ago

This kind of reminds me of when someone reverse engineers a piece of software to document interfaces, protocols or APIs for the purpose of writing compatible software. Then a second person not involved in the RE process implement compatible software from the documentation the first person wrote. This is to avoid any contamination and verbatim copies of code. Once you have read a piece of code there is a risk of "contamination" and you will be influenced by it. It does not matter if you directly copy it, write it out from memory or use an AI to regurgitate it. It will be a copy of the code. To me this is very clear.

dayjah 4y ago
This sounds like “taint” in the M&A space. I’ve very limited experience of it and would be interested in hearing more from the better informed folks on this topic! My limited experience: my then-employer opted not to acquire a company after doing due diligence. Ultimately we decided that the price of acquisition (both paid out, and also incurred in internal time) was below the cost of building a comparable product ourselves. As the dev who did the tech portion of the due diligence I was now “tainted” by my knowledge of their system. As a result I could not work directly on the effort to build our own comparable solution.
- account42 4y ago
  Another example is Wine: Anyone who has seen the Windows source code is not allowed to contribute [0] [0] https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Who_can.27t_contribute_to_Wine.3F https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Who_can.27t_contribute...

monkeybutton 4y ago

Just reading certain code is enough to taint a human programmer though. Some companies have policies against hiring developers with experience on some OSS projects because they have their own clean room implementation they want to protect.

usrn 4y ago
Right. I don't see any way this is legal.
rag-hav 4y ago
> Some companies have policies against hiring developers with experience on some OSS projects Can you please elaborate on this?
- monkeybutton 4y ago
  They're basically following this process to build their products: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
- Sateeshm 4y ago
  Season 1 of halt and catch fire
Zedmor 4y ago
Never heard of single one. I bet you just invented it.

TrustInCopilot 4y ago

> On a tangential note, I always find the discussions surrounding FOSS licenses and copyright rather amusing in a sad way. There's a certain kind of entitlement a lot of people feel towards FOSS that they certainly do not express towards proprietary software and I imagine this a great source of the resentment and burn-out FOSS maintainers feel. Definitely. Many of my acquaintances complaining about Github Copilot without trying it themselves regularly pirate movies, shows and music. They also always cheer if there is some court ruling against Facebook or Google, no matter what the actual case is even about. > The question is ultimately going to come down to - "Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? Or is Copilot performing more of a copy and paste pastiche of code that is protected by intellectual property law?" It seems to me that the regurgitation only happens if you post the first half of the code, expecting the second half. I imagine that the software sees how several hundred repositories (which are all forks) have a very similar pattern and tells you the best fitting approximation of how they continue, which is again very similar. In the future I can definitely see Github updating their license and some kind of exodus by FOSSers towards GitLab. But I believe that many open source projects will just put up with it, similar to how Youtubers and Twitch streamers want to stay on the premier platform.

DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago

I think the problem goes a bit deeper than that. From an IP perspective, I think it's reasonable to consider that training an AI on some form of work is using said work to build a new one, just like it would be if it was manually copied in or reproduced. The problem is that, iirc, GPL didn't consider this at all and still uses language focused on copying code, so something like copilot might slip through the cracks of those definitions. Then again, the license uses this language when it allows usage of the code in the first place, so one could say that either a) this usage is covered by the license, in which case all conditions apply, or b) it is not covered by the license, in which case... github wouldn't be allowed to use the code at all. To give an analogy: I think feeding code into an AI is essentially analogous to compiling the code. A machine turns it into something more usable and the original human-written content isn't part of the result anymore, but the intellectual property gets dragged through the process nonetheless. Why would it be any different just because the mechanism of transforming the code into executable software gets a bit more complicated through the usage of AI?

dwild 4y ago

> Is Copilot the same as a human programmer reading a lot of GPL code and rehashing, in a non-infringing way, the algorithms, functions, and designs used in a lot of FOSS? It literally can't do it in an "in a non-infringing way" as it wasn't made to do it "in a non-infringing way". People were able to get copy-pasted code verbatim. It means it does not know whether what it does infringe on the GPL or not. Let say you find a human that never knew anything about copyright and you show him a bunch of Disney movies and you ask him to make you a movie and he literally copy one of their movie. Does it make it non-infringing? (Funny thing is, even people aware of copyrights does infringe it... so yeah hard to say even a machine could make some non-infringing content). The solution would be to at least make him aware of copyrights and works with that, but first is it even possible, and seconds, is it even enough... Sadly nothing will ever be done, at least not until it we feed it Disney movies and it start to affect their bottom lines.