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Outstanding. Cant wait for a day when code written by companies that use procedural generators and it simply becomes public domain because it cant be copyrighte

Outstanding. Cant wait for a day when code written by companies that use procedural generators and it simply becomes public domain because it cant be copyrighted.

qup 3y ago
Why? If the AI can write it, just ask for it yourself. I'm not very excited for heaps of AI code to get released. I basically consider that already happened.
- pixl97 3y ago
  You're assuming most people are wizards capable of speaking the correct incantations to the AI to get working code.
  - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
    The optimist in me would like to say that people just keep trying incantations until the generated code works, then release it. The pessimist says people already release code that barely works, so we can hardly expect AI code generation to improve matters.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Then the programmers who used the AI to make the system are the authors. They added enough value for it to be recognized as their own thing. Until an AI can do these things on their own the author will continue to be the human driving them.
  - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
    Is there any material difference between speaking the right english incantations vs speaking the right $PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE incantations? By the time I've thought about a problem enough to be able to ask an AI to solve it for me, I'm 99.9% of the way to solving it myself.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Such code would be a trade secret though. If a cola drink's secret sauce recipe was just a single plant in the Amazon, the name of that plant is in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted, and the plant itself probably can't be patented. All they have is knowing what it is and not telling anyone.
tsimionescu 3y ago
First, this case is a nothing burger. It only recognizes the obvious fact that you can't list the "name" of some program in the list of inventors for a patent. Secondly, most code is typically protected by copyright, not patents. And copyright is actually not awardable for automatically generated code, except if the code is a derivative of an otherwise copyright able work. So compiled machine code is protected even though it was generated by a computer program, because it is a derivative of the human-written source code. However, if you write a program which generates all C programs of 10 lines or shorter, you would not be able to claim copyright for those programs (though someone else who manually wrote one of them would still be able to have copyright over their version - provenance is important in copyright law). Now, I don't think this has been tested in court yet, but it's very likely that code produced by ChatGPT or Copilot would be considered a derivative of the prompt provided, and thus would be protected by copyright just as much as a compiled binary.
- klausa 3y ago
  >Now, I don't think this has been tested in court yet, but it's very likely that code produced by ChatGPT or Copilot would be considered a derivative of the prompt provided, and thus would be protected by copyright just as much as a compiled binary. That would be very surprising to me; given that we have already few rulings that images produced by AI are not copyrightable. Is the argument here that code is more "substantial" as an input than just a "make me a pretty image" prompt, and therefore would qualify for different rules?
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    I would see two arguments. One is, yes, if the prompt is complex enough I think that changes the ruling. Secondly, the fact that output is the same kind of media as the input I would think is relevant. An image carries vastly more information than a text response, so it's much more arguable that the output is substantially the contribution of the AI, not based so much on the input.
yieldcrv 3y ago
I’ve been basically doing that all year and generated so much revenue that i dont care if someone copies and pastes anything i got AI to output AI generated images on pitch decks, AI organized slides on said deck, investment achieved AI generated songs on flashy websites, AI assisted code bases, revenue just fine the philosophy is entertain the humans!

Outstanding. Cant wait for a day when code written by companies that use procedural generators and it simply becomes public domain because it cant be copyrighted.

qup 3y ago

Why? If the AI can write it, just ask for it yourself. I'm not very excited for heaps of AI code to get released. I basically consider that already happened.

pixl97 3y ago
You're assuming most people are wizards capable of speaking the correct incantations to the AI to get working code.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  The optimist in me would like to say that people just keep trying incantations until the generated code works, then release it. The pessimist says people already release code that barely works, so we can hardly expect AI code generation to improve matters.
- Jensson 3y ago
  Then the programmers who used the AI to make the system are the authors. They added enough value for it to be recognized as their own thing. Until an AI can do these things on their own the author will continue to be the human driving them.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
  Is there any material difference between speaking the right english incantations vs speaking the right $PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE incantations? By the time I've thought about a problem enough to be able to ask an AI to solve it for me, I'm 99.9% of the way to solving it myself.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Such code would be a trade secret though. If a cola drink's secret sauce recipe was just a single plant in the Amazon, the name of that plant is in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted, and the plant itself probably can't be patented. All they have is knowing what it is and not telling anyone.

tsimionescu 3y ago

First, this case is a nothing burger. It only recognizes the obvious fact that you can't list the "name" of some program in the list of inventors for a patent. Secondly, most code is typically protected by copyright, not patents. And copyright is actually not awardable for automatically generated code, except if the code is a derivative of an otherwise copyright able work. So compiled machine code is protected even though it was generated by a computer program, because it is a derivative of the human-written source code. However, if you write a program which generates all C programs of 10 lines or shorter, you would not be able to claim copyright for those programs (though someone else who manually wrote one of them would still be able to have copyright over their version - provenance is important in copyright law). Now, I don't think this has been tested in court yet, but it's very likely that code produced by ChatGPT or Copilot would be considered a derivative of the prompt provided, and thus would be protected by copyright just as much as a compiled binary.

klausa 3y ago
>Now, I don't think this has been tested in court yet, but it's very likely that code produced by ChatGPT or Copilot would be considered a derivative of the prompt provided, and thus would be protected by copyright just as much as a compiled binary. That would be very surprising to me; given that we have already few rulings that images produced by AI are not copyrightable. Is the argument here that code is more "substantial" as an input than just a "make me a pretty image" prompt, and therefore would qualify for different rules?
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  I would see two arguments. One is, yes, if the prompt is complex enough I think that changes the ruling. Secondly, the fact that output is the same kind of media as the input I would think is relevant. An image carries vastly more information than a text response, so it's much more arguable that the output is substantially the contribution of the AI, not based so much on the input.

yieldcrv 3y ago

I’ve been basically doing that all year and generated so much revenue that i dont care if someone copies and pastes anything i got AI to output AI generated images on pitch decks, AI organized slides on said deck, investment achieved AI generated songs on flashy websites, AI assisted code bases, revenue just fine the philosophy is entertain the humans!