5 ms·

So who’s gonna sue an AI company asserting that all code they produce is GPL due to being trained on GPL code?

palata 1y ago
I feel like nobody cares. It sucks, I know. Like climate change, biodiversity loss, the energy crisis. Feels like we're pretty much screwed. Doesn't mean it's not a problem.
growse 1y ago
How is training a model on GPL code and then having it write code any different to having a human read GPL code and then write code? Unless there's a specific copyright claim over a specific piece of code that was copied and published, it's hard to see how the GPL has any relevance.
- bccdee 1y ago
  Because, unlike humans, LLMs reliably reproduce exact excerpts from their training data. It's very easy to get image generation models to spit out screenshots from movies.
  - growse 1y ago
    That doesn't mean that all of the output from an LLM trained on GPL code is a derivative work (and therefore GPL'd too).
    - bccdee 1y ago
      A model that provably engages in systematic, difficult-to-detect plagiarism must itself be considered plagiaristic.
- palata 1y ago
  I see that argument over and over, and I don't understand how people can consider it makes sense. "My clipboard learned the code, just like a human would. So it should be fine to copy-paste anything and call it my own". "How is killing a human any different to killing a computer?" "If humans can vote, why couldn't computers vote as well?" Can we start at "humans are not computers", maybe?
  - growse 1y ago
    > Can we start at "humans are not computers", maybe? Sure. So it stands to reason that "computers" are not bound by human laws. So an LLM that finds a piece of copyright data out there on the internet, downloads it, and republishes it has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. My original point was that copyright protections are about (amongst other things) protecting distribution and derivative works rights. I'm not seeing a coherent argument that feeding a copyrighted work (that you obtained legally) into a machine is breaching anyone's copyright.
    - palata 1y ago
      > So an LLM that finds a piece of copyright data out there on the internet, downloads it, and republishes it has not broken any law? Are you even trying? A gun that kills a person has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. > I'm not seeing a coherent argument that feeding a copyrighted work (that you obtained legally) into a machine is breaching anyone's copyright. So you don't see how having an automated blackbox that takes copyrighted material as an input and provides a competing alternative that can't be proven to come from the input goes against the idea of copyright protections?
      - rank0 1y ago
        > A gun that kills a person has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. Yeah dude…its an inanimate object.
        palata 1y ago
        Maybe I need to explain it: my point is that the one responsible is the human behind the gun... or behind the LLM. The argument that "an LLM cannot do anything illegal because it is not a human" is nonsense: it is operated by a human.
      - growse 1y ago
        > So you don't see how having an automated blackbox that takes copyrighted material as an input and provides a competing alternative that can't be proven to come from the input goes against the idea of copyright protections? Semantically, this is the same as a human reading all of Tom Clancy and then writing a fast-paced action/war/tension novel. Is that in breach of copyright? Copyright protects the expression of an idea. Not the idea.

I feel like nobody cares. It sucks, I know. Like climate change, biodiversity loss, the energy crisis. Feels like we're pretty much screwed. Doesn't mean it's not a problem.

growse 1y ago

How is training a model on GPL code and then having it write code any different to having a human read GPL code and then write code? Unless there's a specific copyright claim over a specific piece of code that was copied and published, it's hard to see how the GPL has any relevance.

bccdee 1y ago
Because, unlike humans, LLMs reliably reproduce exact excerpts from their training data. It's very easy to get image generation models to spit out screenshots from movies.
- growse 1y ago
  That doesn't mean that all of the output from an LLM trained on GPL code is a derivative work (and therefore GPL'd too).
  - bccdee 1y ago
    A model that provably engages in systematic, difficult-to-detect plagiarism must itself be considered plagiaristic.
palata 1y ago
I see that argument over and over, and I don't understand how people can consider it makes sense. "My clipboard learned the code, just like a human would. So it should be fine to copy-paste anything and call it my own". "How is killing a human any different to killing a computer?" "If humans can vote, why couldn't computers vote as well?" Can we start at "humans are not computers", maybe?
- growse 1y ago
  > Can we start at "humans are not computers", maybe? Sure. So it stands to reason that "computers" are not bound by human laws. So an LLM that finds a piece of copyright data out there on the internet, downloads it, and republishes it has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. My original point was that copyright protections are about (amongst other things) protecting distribution and derivative works rights. I'm not seeing a coherent argument that feeding a copyrighted work (that you obtained legally) into a machine is breaching anyone's copyright.
  - palata 1y ago
    > So an LLM that finds a piece of copyright data out there on the internet, downloads it, and republishes it has not broken any law? Are you even trying? A gun that kills a person has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. > I'm not seeing a coherent argument that feeding a copyrighted work (that you obtained legally) into a machine is breaching anyone's copyright. So you don't see how having an automated blackbox that takes copyrighted material as an input and provides a competing alternative that can't be proven to come from the input goes against the idea of copyright protections?
    - rank0 1y ago
      > A gun that kills a person has not broken any law? It certainly can't be prosecuted. Yeah dude…its an inanimate object.
      - palata 1y ago
        Maybe I need to explain it: my point is that the one responsible is the human behind the gun... or behind the LLM. The argument that "an LLM cannot do anything illegal because it is not a human" is nonsense: it is operated by a human.
    - growse 1y ago
      > So you don't see how having an automated blackbox that takes copyrighted material as an input and provides a competing alternative that can't be proven to come from the input goes against the idea of copyright protections? Semantically, this is the same as a human reading all of Tom Clancy and then writing a fast-paced action/war/tension novel. Is that in breach of copyright? Copyright protects the expression of an idea. Not the idea.