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This is Google, who have a monorepo, who are afraid of the legal risks to the monorepo. The copyright of the output of these tools is not yet determined, it's
by buro9 3y ago
This is Google, who have a monorepo, who are afraid of the legal risks to the monorepo.
The copyright of the output of these tools is not yet determined, it's a risk.
The advice not to use the tools in a risky way not only directly mitigates the risk but like an "employees must wash hands" sign in a restaurant restroom, it can be seen as a reasonable step that transfers some of the liability to the staff member.
It's not a verdict on the output of the tools, it's a reflection of risk aversion in a monorepo company that is very protective of what is in the monorepo.
- samwillis 3y agoI doubt the fact they use a monorepo has any impact on this thinking. A versioned sourced repository is no different from a file server. If some "ai copyright infringed" code made it into the monorepo it doesn't compromise the whole thing. There are still clear distinct projects and products. But exactly, this is a hygiene thing. Staff will still be using these tools anyway.
- praptak 3y agoI agree that monorepo does not make a fundamental difference. Still it makes it easier for some undesirable things to happen. The tainted code can become a critical dependency. It can get copy-pasted elsewhere. An engineer could look at the code before writing their own (obviously not illegal per se but makes it harder to repeal bullshit claims later). An engineer can just write similar code and then have no way to prove they didn't look (ditto).
- mcny 3y ago> It can get copy-pasted elsewhere. I have no experience working with a monorepo but I've read Google has "an army" of people maintaining the monorepo. I would have imagined with enough support like this, you wouldn't need to copy paste code everywhere in a monorepo? I'd appreciate any insight anyone can share on monorepo. I am fascinated by the idea but I've never had a chance to work with it and people who I've met who have either don't want to or can't talk about their experience with it.
- stevejobs69 3y agoas a google swe I find bard almost useless. it doesnt understand any of our internal tooling or context.
- firesteelrain 3y agoSo you broke your company’s policy and Fed code to it?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwaway2990 3y agoYou can’t break a policy which didn’t exist at the time.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoSounds like they got curious and asked a simple “hello world” type of question to see if it had any value.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoIs this "hello world", or is this "Hello World, Inc."? Remember: swift fingertips sink ships.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoThat's reaching. You don't need to put code in to get code out. And you're allowed to have it generate code, just as long as it's not used.
- firesteelrain 3y agoHe said he put code in
- Izkata 3y ago
- AmericanChopper 3y agoIf they were concerned about that as a risk, the thought that came to my mind was exposing the whole codebase to subpoenas.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIs that one of the big risks of a monorepo? That a request for 'the source' will lead to all code in a monorepo to be exposed? I'm sure that's not necessarily the case, but still. The other one I'm thinking of; I know this isn't the case with Google because their repo is too big, but, if a piece of copyrighted code would end up in an average repository, it would quickly be distributed to all users that have a copy of that repo, so they can't take it back again.
- bPspGiJT8Y 3y ago> who are afraid of the legal risks to the monorepo You're talking about a company which happily pays billions in fines because its just a fraction of what they otherwise manage to get away with. They're not at all afraid of doing a lot of illegal stuff, I find it highly unlikely they'd be afraid to step into a minor grey area.
- praptak 3y agoThe risk-reward balance is totally reverted. Profiteering from privacy breaches - big reward, fixed risk (the fines are basically capped). Using risky code - small reward (some worker time), big risk (suddenly everyone and their dog can sue you for bullshit copyright claims).
- threeseed 3y agoYes their Legal/PR teams may recommend that they quietly settle cases. But that doesn't mean that the company will tolerate widespread illegality or allow systemic risks to build up. It's simply not how organisations do things especially those are highly public. Poor reputation doesn't just manifest in lower sales but also introduces unnecessary regulatory risks.
- weinzierl 3y agoI don't think the comparison with "employees must wash hands" signs is apt. Should we see legal action against large language model of questionable heritage produced code, the consequences will be dire for companies. Being able to say to their (probably then ex-) employees "I told you so" will gain them nothing. There will not be nearly enough to get from the breaching ex-employee to compensate for any damages.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoLet's say I go to a restaurant, get food poisoning, and sue the restaurant. Turns out the employee didn't wash their hands (or at least, that's the legal theory). If the restaurant has signs like that up, and consistent messaging to their employees, and new employee training, and other "best practices", then I may still be able to sue them and win. But if they don't have all that stuff, I may be able to sue them for treble damages because of negligence. That is, such measures may not remove liability, but it limits it. Note well: IANAL. Others who know more, feel free to offer corrections.
- weinzierl 3y agoI agree with that. I think the fundamental difference in Google's case is that the suing party is different from the addressee of the warning. Moreover the suing party is powerful and the addressee is completely negligible. Hopefully courts sees that, but who knows?
- spacebanana7 3y ago> Should we see legal action against large language model of questionable heritage produced code, the consequences will be dire for companies. I think we're already past the point of no return. Almost every active codebase in the world (at least the JS part of it) has been tainted by LLM generated code at this point if dependencies count. If courts decided the output of LLMs trained on GPL code was subject to GPL, all the active code in the world would need to be released - which seems impossible to enforce.
- deleted 3y ago
- chii 3y ago> transfers some of the liability to the staff member. As an employee, they take zero of the business risk, as no employee is liable for any of business's risks. It's also why CEOs don't go to jail if they're performing their duties, even if the company is liable for damages or commits a crime. And this is the way it should be.
- candiddevmike 3y agoI'm waiting for the patent troll equivalent of training data
- yencabulator 3y agoSounds like Reddit CEO's next pivot...
- red-iron-pine 3y agonext pivot? they ain't never made money off of ads son. datamining and consensus building were always an aim.
- hiddencost 3y agoI suspect they have a model trained on their own proprietary data, and would prefer employees use that, rather than the bard model, trained on mixed data that they don't own.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago> This is Google, who have a monorepo, who are afraid of the legal risks to the monorepo. Where are you getting any of that from the linked article?
- tiedieconderoga 3y agoCould it also be a reflection of Google's lawyers advising that using LLMs trained on masses of unvetted source-available code is probably tantamount to copyright laundering?
- cyanydeez 3y agoIs openais business model reliant on copyright laundering?
- DoughnutHole 3y agoUndeniably, yes.