3 ms·

so basically we download the sources files to the training weight and remove the LICENSE.MD as it's exactly the same as a person learning to program from propri

by luqtas 11mo ago

so basically we download the sources files to the training weight and remove the LICENSE.MD as it's exactly the same as a person learning to program from proprietay secret code and outputing code based on that for millions of peoples in matter of seconds /s we also treat as however we want public goods found over the internet. as the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works aren't real or because we can as we are operating in international waters, selling products for other sails living exclusively in international waters /s

tpmoney 11mo ago
If you download GPL source code and run `wc` on its files and distribute the output of that, is that a violation of copyright and the GPL? What if you do that for every GPL program on github? What if you use python and numpy and generate a list of every word or symbol used in those programs and how frequently they appear? What if you generate the same frequency data, but also add a weighting by what the previous symbol or word was? What if you did that an also added a weighting by what the next symbol or word was? How many statistical analyses of the code files do you need to bundle together before it becomes copyright infringement?
- sfink 11mo ago
  The line is somewhere between running wc on the entire input and running gzip on the entire input. The fact that a slippery slope is slippery doesn't make it not a slope.
  - tpmoney 11mo ago
    Of course there is a line. And everything we know about how AI models work points to them being on the ‘wc’ side of the line
    - sfink 11mo ago
      Not the way I see it. The argument that GPL code is a tiny minority of what's in the model makes no sense to me. (To be clear, you're not making this argument.) One book is a tiny minority of an entire library, but that doesn't mean it's fine to copy that book word for word simply because you can point to a Large Library Model that contains it. LLMs definitely store pretty high-fidelity representations of specific facts and procedures, so for me it makes more sense to start from the gzip end of the slope and slide the other way. If you took some GPL code and renamed all the variables, is that suddenly ok? What if you mapped the code to an AST and then stored a representation of that AST? What if it was a "fuzzy" or "probabilistic" AST that enabled the regeneration of a functionally equivalent program but the specific control flow and variable names and comments are different? It would be the analogue of (lossy) perceptual coding for audio compression, only instead of "perceptual" it's "functional". This is starting to look more and more like what LLMs store, though they're actually dumber and closer to the literal text than something that maintains function. It also feels a lot closer to 'gzip' than 'wc', imho.
      - tpmoney 11mo ago
        > LLMs definitely store pretty high-fidelity representations of specific facts and procedures Specific facts and procedures are explicitly NOT protected by copyright. That's what made cloning the IBM BIOS legal. It's what makes emulators legal. It's what makes the retro-clone RPG industry legal. It's what made Google cloning the Java API legal. > If you took some GPL code and renamed all the variables, is that suddenly ok? Generally no, not sufficiently transformative. > What if you mapped the code to an AST and then stored a representation of that AST? Generally no, binary distribution of software is considered a violation of copyright. > What if it was a "fuzzy" or "probabilistic" AST that enabled the regeneration of a functionally equivalent program but the specific control flow and variable names and comments are different? This starts to get a lot fuzzier. De-compilation is legal. Creating programs that are functionally identical to other programs is (generally) legal. Creating an emulator for a system is legal. Copyright protects a specific fixed expression of a creative idea, not the idea itself. We don't want to live in the world where Wine is a copyright violation. > This is starting to look more and more like what LLMs store, though they're actually dumber and closer to the literal text than something that maintains function. And yet, so far no one has brought a legal case against the AI companies for being able to extract their copyright protected material from the models. The few early examples of that happening are things that model makers explicitly attempt to train out of their models. It's unwanted behavior that is considered a bug, not a feature. Further the fact that a machine is able to violate copyright does not in and of itself make the machine itself a violation of copyright. See also Xerox machines, DeCSS, Handbrake, Plex/Jellyfin, CD-Rs, DVRs, VHS Recorders etc.

by luqtas 11mo ago

tpmoney 11mo ago

If you download GPL source code and run `wc` on its files and distribute the output of that, is that a violation of copyright and the GPL? What if you do that for every GPL program on github? What if you use python and numpy and generate a list of every word or symbol used in those programs and how frequently they appear? What if you generate the same frequency data, but also add a weighting by what the previous symbol or word was? What if you did that an also added a weighting by what the next symbol or word was? How many statistical analyses of the code files do you need to bundle together before it becomes copyright infringement?

sfink 11mo ago
The line is somewhere between running wc on the entire input and running gzip on the entire input. The fact that a slippery slope is slippery doesn't make it not a slope.
- tpmoney 11mo ago
  Of course there is a line. And everything we know about how AI models work points to them being on the ‘wc’ side of the line
  - sfink 11mo ago
    Not the way I see it. The argument that GPL code is a tiny minority of what's in the model makes no sense to me. (To be clear, you're not making this argument.) One book is a tiny minority of an entire library, but that doesn't mean it's fine to copy that book word for word simply because you can point to a Large Library Model that contains it. LLMs definitely store pretty high-fidelity representations of specific facts and procedures, so for me it makes more sense to start from the gzip end of the slope and slide the other way. If you took some GPL code and renamed all the variables, is that suddenly ok? What if you mapped the code to an AST and then stored a representation of that AST? What if it was a "fuzzy" or "probabilistic" AST that enabled the regeneration of a functionally equivalent program but the specific control flow and variable names and comments are different? It would be the analogue of (lossy) perceptual coding for audio compression, only instead of "perceptual" it's "functional". This is starting to look more and more like what LLMs store, though they're actually dumber and closer to the literal text than something that maintains function. It also feels a lot closer to 'gzip' than 'wc', imho.
    - tpmoney 11mo ago
      > LLMs definitely store pretty high-fidelity representations of specific facts and procedures Specific facts and procedures are explicitly NOT protected by copyright. That's what made cloning the IBM BIOS legal. It's what makes emulators legal. It's what makes the retro-clone RPG industry legal. It's what made Google cloning the Java API legal. > If you took some GPL code and renamed all the variables, is that suddenly ok? Generally no, not sufficiently transformative. > What if you mapped the code to an AST and then stored a representation of that AST? Generally no, binary distribution of software is considered a violation of copyright. > What if it was a "fuzzy" or "probabilistic" AST that enabled the regeneration of a functionally equivalent program but the specific control flow and variable names and comments are different? This starts to get a lot fuzzier. De-compilation is legal. Creating programs that are functionally identical to other programs is (generally) legal. Creating an emulator for a system is legal. Copyright protects a specific fixed expression of a creative idea, not the idea itself. We don't want to live in the world where Wine is a copyright violation. > This is starting to look more and more like what LLMs store, though they're actually dumber and closer to the literal text than something that maintains function. And yet, so far no one has brought a legal case against the AI companies for being able to extract their copyright protected material from the models. The few early examples of that happening are things that model makers explicitly attempt to train out of their models. It's unwanted behavior that is considered a bug, not a feature. Further the fact that a machine is able to violate copyright does not in and of itself make the machine itself a violation of copyright. See also Xerox machines, DeCSS, Handbrake, Plex/Jellyfin, CD-Rs, DVRs, VHS Recorders etc.