3 ms·

> Yes, I'm talking explicitly about feelings. I know my feelings don't impact the legalities of a license. They don't impact the current legality of a licence,

> Yes, I'm talking explicitly about feelings. I know my feelings don't impact the legalities of a license. They don't impact the current legality of a licence, but it will affect future ones. GPL/BSD/Apache/proprietary, they are all picked for ideological concerns which all stem from feelings. It is good to discuss these things, and it is good to recognise that these are emotionally driven.

Sander_Marechal 4y ago
> They don't impact the current legality of a license, but it will affect future ones. Don't they? Even the most liberal licenses require that you at least keep the license and attributions. Which are exactly the parts that AI systems remove. I would have no problem with an AI system trained on GPL code if the output was still covered by the GPL.
- tlocke 4y ago
  The MIT No Attribution licence https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit-0/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit-0/ doesn't require an attribution. It's the licence I choose for new projects.
  - uuuguaii 4y ago
    That's very generous of you. Don't get angry though if I go ahead and re-publish all your code with your name replaced by mine. That's exactly what you are allowing me to do with such a license.
    - mech422 4y ago
      That would be a copyright violation, not a licensing issue. GP is giving you a _license_ to use his code without having to say "GP wrote this", he is NOT giving up his rights to the code.. edit: to clarify, he's allowing you to _use_ it however you like, including making a derivative work, including it wholesale, etc. However, claiming authorship of the original code would still run afoul of the original copyright. edit2: oh - if you mean relicensing the code - that is allowed.
- cornel_io 4y ago
  Whether or not copyright applies at all to model training is an entirely open question, and where rulings have come down, it's likely closer to these situations being fair use (e.g. the Google Book's case, which was ruled transformative and not a direct replacement for the works in question). The reality is, these models don't copy or distribute anything directly, which makes applying copyright a bit of a stretch. Many people feel like it is a use that should have some sort of IP law applying to it, which is why I think there's some chance that courts or legislators will decide to screw the letter of existing law and just wedge new interpretations in, but it's not super simple: they'd have to thread the needle and not make things like search illegal, and that's tricky. Besides that, these models are out there, they're useful, and if they're ruled infringing they'll just be distributed illegally anyways. I don't envy the people who will have to decide these cases, I suspect what's better for the world overall is to leave the law as-is and clarify that fair use holds (nobody will stop publishing content or code just because AI is slurping it up, a few weirdos like the article author excepted), but there are going to be a lot of pissed off people either way...
  - bombolo 4y ago
    Would I be able to train an AI only using microsoft's leaked windows code to write a windows clone with no copyright (since it comes from an AI) and be safe from legal repercussions because it was trained on fair use code I just happened to find online? If they rule that it's ok to do that, I might be ok with AI being ruled as fair use.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Is it even fair use under the law to consume that Windows source code?
      - bombolo 4y ago
        People who train AI models claim that anything they can find on the internet is fair use. It's the whole point of the discussion… is it really? And if it's not fair use to train on windows source code because of copyright… doesn't that same copyright law cover everything else as well?
- happymellon 4y ago
  You misunderstood. Their emotions do not impact current licences, but their choice of licence is an emotional act. There are plenty of arguments to choose a licence, and as the world changes we will evolve. See how the GPL itself evolved to handle TiVo. These things arent static. I personally agree that GPL trained code should produce GPL code, I see a distiction between teaching people and teaching computers but that isn't my call.
zelphirkalt 4y ago
They are emotionally driven, but that is not all there is too it. They are also driven by an insight, that most people/organisations do not give back to the community, unless obligated to do so. It is about advancement of society and goods everyone can use, if only they give back to society, when it is their turn to share. This is exactly what code laundering ANNs circumvent and that might open up a dystopian future for all of us, not only us code monkeys, but society in general.
ghaff 4y ago
>they are all picked for ideological concerns which all stem from feelings Or, perhaps more commonly, they were picked for business model reasons or (related) because building a community that includes commercial interests tends to favor more permissive licensing.

Sander_Marechal 4y ago

> They don't impact the current legality of a license, but it will affect future ones. Don't they? Even the most liberal licenses require that you at least keep the license and attributions. Which are exactly the parts that AI systems remove. I would have no problem with an AI system trained on GPL code if the output was still covered by the GPL.

tlocke 4y ago
The MIT No Attribution licence https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit-0/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit-0/ doesn't require an attribution. It's the licence I choose for new projects.
- uuuguaii 4y ago
  That's very generous of you. Don't get angry though if I go ahead and re-publish all your code with your name replaced by mine. That's exactly what you are allowing me to do with such a license.
  - mech422 4y ago
    That would be a copyright violation, not a licensing issue. GP is giving you a _license_ to use his code without having to say "GP wrote this", he is NOT giving up his rights to the code.. edit: to clarify, he's allowing you to _use_ it however you like, including making a derivative work, including it wholesale, etc. However, claiming authorship of the original code would still run afoul of the original copyright. edit2: oh - if you mean relicensing the code - that is allowed.
cornel_io 4y ago
Whether or not copyright applies at all to model training is an entirely open question, and where rulings have come down, it's likely closer to these situations being fair use (e.g. the Google Book's case, which was ruled transformative and not a direct replacement for the works in question). The reality is, these models don't copy or distribute anything directly, which makes applying copyright a bit of a stretch. Many people feel like it is a use that should have some sort of IP law applying to it, which is why I think there's some chance that courts or legislators will decide to screw the letter of existing law and just wedge new interpretations in, but it's not super simple: they'd have to thread the needle and not make things like search illegal, and that's tricky. Besides that, these models are out there, they're useful, and if they're ruled infringing they'll just be distributed illegally anyways. I don't envy the people who will have to decide these cases, I suspect what's better for the world overall is to leave the law as-is and clarify that fair use holds (nobody will stop publishing content or code just because AI is slurping it up, a few weirdos like the article author excepted), but there are going to be a lot of pissed off people either way...
- bombolo 4y ago
  Would I be able to train an AI only using microsoft's leaked windows code to write a windows clone with no copyright (since it comes from an AI) and be safe from legal repercussions because it was trained on fair use code I just happened to find online? If they rule that it's ok to do that, I might be ok with AI being ruled as fair use.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Is it even fair use under the law to consume that Windows source code?
    - bombolo 4y ago
      People who train AI models claim that anything they can find on the internet is fair use. It's the whole point of the discussion… is it really? And if it's not fair use to train on windows source code because of copyright… doesn't that same copyright law cover everything else as well?
happymellon 4y ago
You misunderstood. Their emotions do not impact current licences, but their choice of licence is an emotional act. There are plenty of arguments to choose a licence, and as the world changes we will evolve. See how the GPL itself evolved to handle TiVo. These things arent static. I personally agree that GPL trained code should produce GPL code, I see a distiction between teaching people and teaching computers but that isn't my call.

zelphirkalt 4y ago

They are emotionally driven, but that is not all there is too it. They are also driven by an insight, that most people/organisations do not give back to the community, unless obligated to do so. It is about advancement of society and goods everyone can use, if only they give back to society, when it is their turn to share. This is exactly what code laundering ANNs circumvent and that might open up a dystopian future for all of us, not only us code monkeys, but society in general.

ghaff 4y ago

>they are all picked for ideological concerns which all stem from feelings Or, perhaps more commonly, they were picked for business model reasons or (related) because building a community that includes commercial interests tends to favor more permissive licensing.