17 replies

1. Simon MacDonald Mastodon 8 min later

   @zachleat That used to keep me up at night when I worked at Adobe. Back then CoPilot would spit out code verbatim from GPL projects. We didn't want to be the legal test case so the OSPO (engineers/lawyers) recommended strongly we do not use these AI code generators until there is established case law.

   That is for a Fortune 500 level company. As a dev hacking on a side project the risk is not as great. As my Dad would say, “Never sue poor people.”

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 10 min later

      @macdonst this is surely not a ticking time bomb

      1. Simon MacDonald Mastodon 54 min later

         @zachleat it's a giant game of chicken. MS has some protections for their commercial customers though. Still I would not want to be the test case in litigation.

         https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/03/28/data-protection-responsible-ai-azure-copilot/#:~:text=Building%20on%20our%20previous%20AI,and%20our%20Azure%20OpenAI%20Service.

         1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 1 hr later

            @macdonst holy shit that quote is *WILD*

         2. Paul L Mastodon 15 hr later

            @macdonst @zachleat this does not look sane at all. Thanks MUCH for the quote.
            Imagine that this kind of responsibility extends to patent suits or to purpose (two different things)…

            Code is made to be readable so that a human can read and write it and take responsibility. Not doing so is just part of the stupid rush of productivity that managers hope but just makes no sense.

            If code is to be produced faster then you need better (more reliable…) libraries.

2. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 9 min later

   ha ha ha licenses aren’t good vibes — we’re coding only with vibes now

3. Konnor Rogers Bluesky 13 min later

   gotta make your whole LLM open source and licensed under GPL 😜

4. Jason Garber Mastodon 1 hr later

   @zachleat taps the “when you're famous they let you do it” sign

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 1 hr later

      @jgarber well this is a cursed reference!

      1. Jason Garber Mastodon 1 hr later

         @zachleat it'll sting, but i'll accept your block

         1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 1 hr later

            @jgarber I only block on the blockchain

            1. Jason Garber Mastodon 1 hr later

               @zachleat oh good you will never ever find me there

5. Juhis Mastodon 6 hr later

   @zachleat the one with best lawyers wins.

6. 如月飛羽🌈 Mastodon 12 hr later

   @zachleat Nothing except I guess https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/case-updates.html

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 23 hr later

      @kisaragi_hiu seems fair to me

7. Cory LaViska Bluesky 26 days later

   Gray area. You can legally study GPL code and create new, non-GPL code based on those learnings. It boils down to whether or not a judge will rule that AI is producing unique works vs infringing existing copyrights.

8. Nick Williams Bluesky 26 days later

   Large IP-Laundering Models