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> That’s copying. > These models copy code. These assertions have very little weight - what matters is what the law says. And for now, in the jurisdictions th

> That’s copying. > These models copy code. These assertions have very little weight - what matters is what the law says. And for now, in the jurisdictions that matter, the law is still silent. Maybe it will catch up via either legislation or case law, or maybe it won't. But for now there is no legal consensus on what these new things are doing. Of course there is a moral/ethical component to this, and individuals are obviously free to hold personal views. But unless some global working consensus forms (unlikely) then I don't see how change will come from that. I suspect that it's going to be difficult for politicians to find the will to do something about this issue, and then to get their heads around it enough to make good laws.

nassimm 3y ago
The subject of the thread is "Will my code be regurgitated if I put it on Github ? Should I avoid putting my code on Github if I don't want it copied?" The legality aspect that you are injecting into the discussion is irrelevant
- andyjohnson0 3y ago
  I was replying to the comment by @wokwokwok.
wokwokwok 3y ago
If y = f(x, T) when y is a member of T, prove f() doesn’t copy a value from T. This is possible. For example, many functions f(0) return 0; if we can derive a function g(x) that generates y without access to T (ie. the training data) then we can plausibly assume that f(x, T) might indeed not be copying from T. …but can we do so? If so, we must admit that it is possible that f(x, T) = g(x) and no copying is taking place. So, in the past 50 years of prior work can we come up with an example of a function g(x) that generates the exact code we see coming out of these LLMs? I’ll grant, it’s not impossible. For example, if stable diffusion generated sin wave patterns or fractals that exhibited “deep complex structure” and it happens that some artist had written code to do that exact thing, there would (I believe) be a fair case that stable diffusion was not copying the artist, it was simply a parallel implementation of the same generative code. However, now my scepticism kicks in. For code written by hand, that was not generated, we are suggesting that a LLM is a parallel equivalent implementation of a human mind, and it can, with purely “learnt patterns” replicate not only the intent and structure of known code, but the exact code itself, repeatedly. I’ll grant. It’s not impossible, and it’s very difficult to prove, but it seems fabulously, unbelievably, extraordinarily unlikely that a clean room reimplementation would be identical, repeatedly. We’re entering into the domain of assigning probability and then doing a zero knowledge proof here, but the solution is easy. Just prove by counter example. Train a model that generates such code without the code as training data. You have now won the argument. …on the bright side, you’ve also solved the 10 million dollar question of “how do I train my LLM when I don’t have enough training data” (because that’s what you just did; train it to do something without training data), so you’re now rich and give zero ducks what I think. Congrats.
- skinnymuch 3y ago
  Could you explain this: > For example, if stable diffusion generated sin wave patterns or fractals that exhibited “deep complex structure” and it happens that some artist had written code to do that exact thing, there would (I believe) be a fair case that stable diffusion was not copying the artist, it was simply a parallel implementation of the same generative code. I understand your pseudo equations and I understand [some] engineering. Why are artists writing code? Is that to show the parallel of if artists did write code? Unless artists do really write code but that’s beyond the scope of what I’m asking.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    The point was that some artist may have created a work representing a complex fractal, perhaps through code since it can be quite difficult to manually compute some fractal patterns. And that in that case, g(x) that can produce a perfect copy of the artist's work without having the image in the training set provably exists, and is the actual mathematical fractal function itself.
mbreese 3y ago
The law is generally less concerned with how something happened and more concerned with what happened. So I would suspect that the legal frameworks will be more restrictive towards code that is reproduced verbatim, regardless of if the code is directly copied or LLM generated.
- skinnymuch 3y ago
  The law is concerned about the “who” the most usually from my personal lived experience.
sumtechguy 3y ago
This is correct. I suspect that the colorization precedencies will come back into play https://chart.copyrightdata.com/Colorization.html https://chart.copyrightdata.com/Colorization.html Basically if you take something then feed new info into it is that new thing a new thing or a derivative of that work or other? With these models the data and mathmatical spline is so smeared across thousands of endpoints it is hard to tell. However, I do not think the courts have to think about the details of how the models work. They can do something else so a jury can get its head around it. But basically the courts will probably simplify it into copyright things go in one side. Other things come out the other that sort of kind of resemble the original thing. Do not worry about the details of how it is done. Is that new thing owned by the original copyright holder? Or many holders, as it is smeared into a hundred other items that may or may not have copyright holders? Or is it a new work? Or is it a derivative work just colored? This could go either way. As someone put it very nicely here a few weeks ago. These AIs are like the most amazing auto complete you have ever seen. Now in copyright if you make something and I independently come up with the same exact thing. Also I can prove that I am in very little trouble. Now in this case without that input code that AI model probably would not predict that exact string. But it in some cases exactly predict it again but can predict thousands of other things also. Is that prediction copyrightable? What if it predicts part of the code but with something else? I as a 3rd party who did not create the model and just used it and got the code what are my liabilities? Then if it is what are the consequences of that? The courts will have to decide eventually.
skinnymuch 3y ago
The law cares about class. For which class: not the working class. AI has no reason not to continue through the ethics issues in the Global North. I believe China is trying to limit AI powers but who knows how that will go.

nassimm 3y ago

The subject of the thread is "Will my code be regurgitated if I put it on Github ? Should I avoid putting my code on Github if I don't want it copied?" The legality aspect that you are injecting into the discussion is irrelevant

andyjohnson0 3y ago
I was replying to the comment by @wokwokwok.

wokwokwok 3y ago

If y = f(x, T) when y is a member of T, prove f() doesn’t copy a value from T. This is possible. For example, many functions f(0) return 0; if we can derive a function g(x) that generates y without access to T (ie. the training data) then we can plausibly assume that f(x, T) might indeed not be copying from T. …but can we do so? If so, we must admit that it is possible that f(x, T) = g(x) and no copying is taking place. So, in the past 50 years of prior work can we come up with an example of a function g(x) that generates the exact code we see coming out of these LLMs? I’ll grant, it’s not impossible. For example, if stable diffusion generated sin wave patterns or fractals that exhibited “deep complex structure” and it happens that some artist had written code to do that exact thing, there would (I believe) be a fair case that stable diffusion was not copying the artist, it was simply a parallel implementation of the same generative code. However, now my scepticism kicks in. For code written by hand, that was not generated, we are suggesting that a LLM is a parallel equivalent implementation of a human mind, and it can, with purely “learnt patterns” replicate not only the intent and structure of known code, but the exact code itself, repeatedly. I’ll grant. It’s not impossible, and it’s very difficult to prove, but it seems fabulously, unbelievably, extraordinarily unlikely that a clean room reimplementation would be identical, repeatedly. We’re entering into the domain of assigning probability and then doing a zero knowledge proof here, but the solution is easy. Just prove by counter example. Train a model that generates such code without the code as training data. You have now won the argument. …on the bright side, you’ve also solved the 10 million dollar question of “how do I train my LLM when I don’t have enough training data” (because that’s what you just did; train it to do something without training data), so you’re now rich and give zero ducks what I think. Congrats.

skinnymuch 3y ago
Could you explain this: > For example, if stable diffusion generated sin wave patterns or fractals that exhibited “deep complex structure” and it happens that some artist had written code to do that exact thing, there would (I believe) be a fair case that stable diffusion was not copying the artist, it was simply a parallel implementation of the same generative code. I understand your pseudo equations and I understand [some] engineering. Why are artists writing code? Is that to show the parallel of if artists did write code? Unless artists do really write code but that’s beyond the scope of what I’m asking.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  The point was that some artist may have created a work representing a complex fractal, perhaps through code since it can be quite difficult to manually compute some fractal patterns. And that in that case, g(x) that can produce a perfect copy of the artist's work without having the image in the training set provably exists, and is the actual mathematical fractal function itself.

mbreese 3y ago

The law is generally less concerned with how something happened and more concerned with what happened. So I would suspect that the legal frameworks will be more restrictive towards code that is reproduced verbatim, regardless of if the code is directly copied or LLM generated.

skinnymuch 3y ago
The law is concerned about the “who” the most usually from my personal lived experience.

sumtechguy 3y ago

This is correct. I suspect that the colorization precedencies will come back into play https://chart.copyrightdata.com/Colorization.html https://chart.copyrightdata.com/Colorization.html Basically if you take something then feed new info into it is that new thing a new thing or a derivative of that work or other? With these models the data and mathmatical spline is so smeared across thousands of endpoints it is hard to tell. However, I do not think the courts have to think about the details of how the models work. They can do something else so a jury can get its head around it. But basically the courts will probably simplify it into copyright things go in one side. Other things come out the other that sort of kind of resemble the original thing. Do not worry about the details of how it is done. Is that new thing owned by the original copyright holder? Or many holders, as it is smeared into a hundred other items that may or may not have copyright holders? Or is it a new work? Or is it a derivative work just colored? This could go either way. As someone put it very nicely here a few weeks ago. These AIs are like the most amazing auto complete you have ever seen. Now in copyright if you make something and I independently come up with the same exact thing. Also I can prove that I am in very little trouble. Now in this case without that input code that AI model probably would not predict that exact string. But it in some cases exactly predict it again but can predict thousands of other things also. Is that prediction copyrightable? What if it predicts part of the code but with something else? I as a 3rd party who did not create the model and just used it and got the code what are my liabilities? Then if it is what are the consequences of that? The courts will have to decide eventually.

skinnymuch 3y ago

The law cares about class. For which class: not the working class. AI has no reason not to continue through the ethics issues in the Global North. I believe China is trying to limit AI powers but who knows how that will go.