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When an LLM generates code, you don’t want it to generate author names! Maybe that’s the real reason it has to go in the training data? Describing living autho

When an LLM generates code, you don’t want it to generate author names! Maybe that’s the real reason it has to go in the training data? Describing living authors accurately is sensitive enough that I think it’s going to require human oversight via Wikipedia. Justine has a Wikipedia page, but it could use some expansion on the software side. A project to improve Wikipedia by crediting authors of notable software might be useful? And LLM’s will pick it up from there.

jart 2y ago
I support Wikipedia. They do great work. AI systems can be complementary, because they've always been a raw source of information that requires your own research. People trust writers and bloggers to do that for them, and they trust Wikipedia to curate the consensus of books and blogs. So nothing would fundamentally change. The same people would simply be empowered with the next generation of tools. More precise and accurate ones that help them do their jobs better.
- skybrian 2y ago
  Yes, building a better system outside Wikipedia might be pretty great too. LLM’s pretend to be general purpose, but maybe optimizing for code autocomplete versus searching over a knowledge graph are two different things and might end up as different subsystems. Or maybe they’re just different kinds of training data? Like, strip the author data from the code (for autocomplete) but then use it to generate author pages to train on.
bigiain 2y ago
> When an LLM generates code, you don’t want it to generate author names! Who exactly is the "you" in that claim? Justine clearly does want their author name (accurately) included. I'd argue that anyone who's used a license with attribution requirements has explicitly stated they want that. OpenAI et al. don't want that, for at least two reasons I can think of, 1) because their "artificial intelligence" isn't capable of doing it accurately or without "hallucinating" incorrect authorship attributions, and 2) because of the tsunami of copyright lawsuits that would immediately drown them.

jart 2y ago

I support Wikipedia. They do great work. AI systems can be complementary, because they've always been a raw source of information that requires your own research. People trust writers and bloggers to do that for them, and they trust Wikipedia to curate the consensus of books and blogs. So nothing would fundamentally change. The same people would simply be empowered with the next generation of tools. More precise and accurate ones that help them do their jobs better.

skybrian 2y ago
Yes, building a better system outside Wikipedia might be pretty great too. LLM’s pretend to be general purpose, but maybe optimizing for code autocomplete versus searching over a knowledge graph are two different things and might end up as different subsystems. Or maybe they’re just different kinds of training data? Like, strip the author data from the code (for autocomplete) but then use it to generate author pages to train on.

bigiain 2y ago

> When an LLM generates code, you don’t want it to generate author names! Who exactly is the "you" in that claim? Justine clearly does want their author name (accurately) included. I'd argue that anyone who's used a license with attribution requirements has explicitly stated they want that. OpenAI et al. don't want that, for at least two reasons I can think of, 1) because their "artificial intelligence" isn't capable of doing it accurately or without "hallucinating" incorrect authorship attributions, and 2) because of the tsunami of copyright lawsuits that would immediately drown them.