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My 2 cents, 1. I think if you don't want your code re-used in CoPilot you should have that right 2. I think if CoPilot gets smart enough that it can read your
by gernb 4y ago
My 2 cents,
1. I think if you don't want your code re-used in CoPilot you should have that right
2. I think if CoPilot gets smart enough that it can read your open source code and then reproduce the algorithms without copying your code that should be fair use. It's the same thing a human would do. AFAIK CoPilot can not do that but I can certainly imagine it's not too many years away from that.
3. I think I would opt into sharing all my open source code mostly unrestricted with services like CoPilot. I think the group of people that choose to share their code with AI will do better over all than those that lock their code behind licenses.
Note that I'm referring to snippets of code. I don't know what a good definition of snippet is. In other words, if AI helps me write chunks of 10-100 lines at a time I don't see a problem. Effectively, S.O. answer level of snippets. Whereas, if I tell AI "create LibreOffice" and it clones the millions of lines of code, I think that is a problem. I don't know where the cut off is.
- phire 4y agoWhat you describe, is what co-pilot already does most of the time. The examples where people can show it reproducing snippits of code are more the exception than the rule. And they are usually done by people who are trying to manuliption into proving that it can reproduce copyrighted code. Some people tend to think of it as a search engine. Looking though it's database for relevant snippets for the current situation and regurgitating them unmodified. But that's really not what it's doing. It's more like the AI autocomplete on your phone, but for code. It might not be able to understand the algorithms. But it seems to be able to adapt simple algorithms that it's seen multiple times in it's training data to match the surrounding code (in style, naming conventions, and actually using the variable/functions you already have). I don't have number, but from my experience, I would say it generates uniqu(ish) non-copyrighted code at least 95% of the time. The only question is what to do about the other times when it does occasionally output potentially copyright infringing code, either by accident, or when it's forced.
- wilsonnb3 4y ago> 1. I think if you don't want your code re-used in CoPilot you should have that right People already have that right - all you have to do is not host your code on GitHub.