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Given how cautious corporate lawyers usually are, I'm surprised any company allows the use of AI for code generation. The USPTO has been pretty clear that AI g

Given how cautious corporate lawyers usually are, I'm surprised any company allows the use of AI for code generation. The USPTO has been pretty clear that AI generated material is not copyrightable, as to qualify for copyright a work has to be the creative act of a human. So any company allowing AI to generate code runs the risk of not owning the copyright on it.

gumballindie 4y ago
At some point we're going to have to test this - can we go work for a company and if their workers write code with the help of ai can we just use the code for ourselves as well? Since it's not copyright-able.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  No, because PP completely mischaracterized what USPTO said.
sebzim4500 4y ago
Is there any practical difference between owning the copyright on a badly defined ~30% of a codebase and 100% of the codebase? In either case, no sane company is going to buy the code if one of your employees tries to leak it to them, which I assume is your concern.
- mhandley 4y ago
  Scene, a courtroom, 2026: "So Mr Zim, you're accusing X of using your copyrighted code. But you've admitted you used AI to generate that codebase, so you don't own the copyright. Please prove exactly which lines of code you do own the copyright to?"
  - sebzim4500 4y ago
    Depending on what logs exist I could probably find lines of code which definitely aren't AI generated. Of course, in practice I wouldn't bother and would sue using trade secret laws instead where no such issue exists.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    "I prompted and edited the AI code"
yamtaddle 4y ago
Does Microsoft allow Copilot use on their products? Can MSOffice or Azure or Windows developers use Copilot to write code? I've been waiting to find that out before I go anywhere near this kind of thing.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  I'm not sure if this has ever been stated publically but it is my understanding that MSFT dogfooded copilot a lot just before/after the launch. I'm not sure if they are doing this still, but I don't see why they would have stopped.
- belval 4y ago
  Not Microsoft and not Copilot, but Amazon is encouraging us to use CodeWhisperer at work. That being said I don't think the CodeWhisperer model was trained on non-permissive data so maybe that's why. https://aws.amazon.com/codewhisperer/faqs/ https://aws.amazon.com/codewhisperer/faqs/
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Where does the FAQ say that? I see that it says it was trained, in part, on open source code. That's pretty vague in terms of determining permission.
    - belval 4y ago
      That's why I said "I think", it's not really clear. That being said: > Will CodeWhisperer produce code that looks similar to its training data > If CodeWhisperer detects that its output matches particular open-source training data, the built-in reference tracker will notify you with a reference to the license type (for example, MIT or Apache) and a URL for the open-source project. They seem to at least have some protections in place to prevent CodeWhisperer from spitting out existing code without attribution as shown in the Twitter thread. They also only mention MIT and Apache.
- whaleofatw2022 4y ago
  Bigger question is whether Microsoft used all of their internal code to help train. If not is is a good indication of trust
lolinder 4y ago
This is a common misunderstanding of the recent guidance[0] that ignores substantial portions of it. The Copyright Office was pretty clear that works that incorporate AI-generated content can be copyrighted if there is sufficient human input. If there isn't substantial human input in judiciously curating and integrating AI-generated code, the company has bigger problems than copyright. Here's the most relevant quotation from the guidance clarifying when AI-assisted works can be copyrighted: > In other cases, however, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that “the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” [33] Or an artist may modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection.[34] In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself.[35] > This policy does not mean that technological tools cannot be part of the creative process. Authors have long used such tools to create their works or to recast, transform, or adapt their expressive authorship. For example, a visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image,[36] and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording. In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work's expression and “actually formed” the traditional elements of authorship.[37] [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
- pests 4y ago
  > In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself.[35] It still sounds like there could be cases where a company only has copyright to a part of their own source code. How would outsiders even be aware of what has copyright and what doesn't in this situation? If an entire function was created via AI is that function then fair game for others to use as well?
hgsgm 4y ago
"Under the new rule, though applicants may claim a copyright for an arrangement or editing of such material, the original work is ineligible"

gumballindie 4y ago

At some point we're going to have to test this - can we go work for a company and if their workers write code with the help of ai can we just use the code for ourselves as well? Since it's not copyright-able.

hgsgm 4y ago
No, because PP completely mischaracterized what USPTO said.

sebzim4500 4y ago

Is there any practical difference between owning the copyright on a badly defined ~30% of a codebase and 100% of the codebase? In either case, no sane company is going to buy the code if one of your employees tries to leak it to them, which I assume is your concern.

mhandley 4y ago
Scene, a courtroom, 2026: "So Mr Zim, you're accusing X of using your copyrighted code. But you've admitted you used AI to generate that codebase, so you don't own the copyright. Please prove exactly which lines of code you do own the copyright to?"
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  Depending on what logs exist I could probably find lines of code which definitely aren't AI generated. Of course, in practice I wouldn't bother and would sue using trade secret laws instead where no such issue exists.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  "I prompted and edited the AI code"

yamtaddle 4y ago

Does Microsoft allow Copilot use on their products? Can MSOffice or Azure or Windows developers use Copilot to write code? I've been waiting to find that out before I go anywhere near this kind of thing.

sebzim4500 4y ago
I'm not sure if this has ever been stated publically but it is my understanding that MSFT dogfooded copilot a lot just before/after the launch. I'm not sure if they are doing this still, but I don't see why they would have stopped.
belval 4y ago
Not Microsoft and not Copilot, but Amazon is encouraging us to use CodeWhisperer at work. That being said I don't think the CodeWhisperer model was trained on non-permissive data so maybe that's why. https://aws.amazon.com/codewhisperer/faqs/ https://aws.amazon.com/codewhisperer/faqs/
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Where does the FAQ say that? I see that it says it was trained, in part, on open source code. That's pretty vague in terms of determining permission.
  - belval 4y ago
    That's why I said "I think", it's not really clear. That being said: > Will CodeWhisperer produce code that looks similar to its training data > If CodeWhisperer detects that its output matches particular open-source training data, the built-in reference tracker will notify you with a reference to the license type (for example, MIT or Apache) and a URL for the open-source project. They seem to at least have some protections in place to prevent CodeWhisperer from spitting out existing code without attribution as shown in the Twitter thread. They also only mention MIT and Apache.
whaleofatw2022 4y ago
Bigger question is whether Microsoft used all of their internal code to help train. If not is is a good indication of trust

lolinder 4y ago

This is a common misunderstanding of the recent guidance[0] that ignores substantial portions of it. The Copyright Office was pretty clear that works that incorporate AI-generated content can be copyrighted if there is sufficient human input. If there isn't substantial human input in judiciously curating and integrating AI-generated code, the company has bigger problems than copyright. Here's the most relevant quotation from the guidance clarifying when AI-assisted works can be copyrighted: > In other cases, however, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that “the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” [33] Or an artist may modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection.[34] In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself.[35] > This policy does not mean that technological tools cannot be part of the creative process. Authors have long used such tools to create their works or to recast, transform, or adapt their expressive authorship. For example, a visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image,[36] and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording. In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work's expression and “actually formed” the traditional elements of authorship.[37] [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...

pests 4y ago
> In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself.[35] It still sounds like there could be cases where a company only has copyright to a part of their own source code. How would outsiders even be aware of what has copyright and what doesn't in this situation? If an entire function was created via AI is that function then fair game for others to use as well?

hgsgm 4y ago

"Under the new rule, though applicants may claim a copyright for an arrangement or editing of such material, the original work is ineligible"