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There's a setting on GitHub that blocks any suggestions that exactly match code in the training set. I doubt you'd ever get in trouble for code that was similar

There's a setting on GitHub that blocks any suggestions that exactly match code in the training set. I doubt you'd ever get in trouble for code that was similar in structure but different variables etc from existing licensed code (especially since most small snippets of code are not terribly unique to begin with).

biztos 4y ago
AFAIK that's not enough, for instance see the long-standing industry practice that people working on the Important Stuff are not allowed to ever look at the source code of the Direct Competitor; or clean-room reverse engineering, etc. I guess time will tell how much acquiring companies (my worry) care about Copilot. Given the difficulty hiring good devs, and the productivity level of body-shop devs, I see it getting a whole lot of use very soon, acknowledged or not.
- natefinch 4y ago
  There's a big difference between reverse engineering (i.e. intentionally writing software that behaves identically to another piece of software), and writing your own code to solve your own problem that may superficially contain small portions of the similar logic as some other project. Copyrighted code has to be sufficiently creative and unique to qualify, otherwise after the first person wrote code to parse json from a web request, no one else would be able to do the same thing.
skjoldr 4y ago
Then Microsoft should write this as a legal statement on their part that they will take responsibility for. But I doubt they will ever do that.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  Microsoft is not the author of the software that copilot helps produce. the person sitting at the keyboard using copilot is the author.
  - pabs3 4y ago
    How is copilot not the author?
    - natefinch 4y ago
      Copilot is software, it can't be the author, just like the OS isn't the author when you copy and paste. Authors have to be humans.
      - pabs3 4y ago
        Copy and paste doesn't really write code, just copies it from one place to another. Copilot on the other hand does generate new potentially novel code.
  - bilekas 4y ago
    This is a bit like saying if you hire a freelancer to do some work then you're the author of that work. I'm not too sure i agree with that.
    - gerikson 4y ago
      https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire
      - bilekas 4y ago
        Kind of interesting.. I would like to point out this seems to be specific for the US. But also.. In that case, when I commission an artist to paint my portrait, surely I can't claim to be the artist.. But I'm no lawyer. I'm not sure there is a contractual agreement in GitHub's co-pilot that says: "Any code you write here is commissioned work". But honestly I didn't read the T&C's. So I think you MAY have debunked my analogy, but not the main reason for the analogy.
grayclhn 4y ago
I mean, it's nice that they have a setting for the bare minimum a lazy undergrad would do to avoid getting caught for plagarism — replace some of the words in the copied paragraph with replacements from a thesaurus. It's not something I'd personally expect to hold up under real scrutiny though.
yucky 4y ago
It does sound like the value of code creators is going to soon see significant downward pressure.
- natefinch 4y ago
  I'm sure that's what people said when they went from punch cards to assembly, and from assembly to C, and from C to Java.... and yet, here we are. Tools that let us write higher level code faster, just allow us to create more complicated software in a reasonable amount of time.
  - yucky 4y ago
    I think the argument is now it takes considerably less brain power to do, thereby increasing the labor pool and devaluing the output.
    - natefinch 4y ago
      That's still 100% true of the examples I mentioned. There's always a higher level to consider. When we moved to C, we could stop worrying about what registers we were using. When we moved to python/Java we could stop worrying about managing memory. When we moved to web frameworks we stoping writing the guts of our servers. And if anything, programmers have become even better paid, despite so many more people in the industry.
      - Naracion 4y ago
        I agree with you--however, programmers have not become even better paid because society values programmers. They have become better paid because software is a relatively new artefact in human society which has taken the human life by storm, which has made software companies immensely profitable, which meant more companies wanted to create software and attract the people that could help them do it. As software takes a back seat (or at least a "normal" seat) in society, would we see a normalization of income? Could this be hastened by the development and introduction of tools such as copilot? Potentially, unless there are new / better things that humans can claim they can provide compared to AI tools. This is the point where I think you and I agree, and I think it's your primary argument in any case (unless I'm mistaken).

biztos 4y ago

AFAIK that's not enough, for instance see the long-standing industry practice that people working on the Important Stuff are not allowed to ever look at the source code of the Direct Competitor; or clean-room reverse engineering, etc. I guess time will tell how much acquiring companies (my worry) care about Copilot. Given the difficulty hiring good devs, and the productivity level of body-shop devs, I see it getting a whole lot of use very soon, acknowledged or not.

natefinch 4y ago
There's a big difference between reverse engineering (i.e. intentionally writing software that behaves identically to another piece of software), and writing your own code to solve your own problem that may superficially contain small portions of the similar logic as some other project. Copyrighted code has to be sufficiently creative and unique to qualify, otherwise after the first person wrote code to parse json from a web request, no one else would be able to do the same thing.

skjoldr 4y ago

Then Microsoft should write this as a legal statement on their part that they will take responsibility for. But I doubt they will ever do that.

naikrovek 4y ago
Microsoft is not the author of the software that copilot helps produce. the person sitting at the keyboard using copilot is the author.
- pabs3 4y ago
  How is copilot not the author?
  - natefinch 4y ago
    Copilot is software, it can't be the author, just like the OS isn't the author when you copy and paste. Authors have to be humans.
    - pabs3 4y ago
      Copy and paste doesn't really write code, just copies it from one place to another. Copilot on the other hand does generate new potentially novel code.
- bilekas 4y ago
  This is a bit like saying if you hire a freelancer to do some work then you're the author of that work. I'm not too sure i agree with that.
  - gerikson 4y ago
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire
    - bilekas 4y ago
      Kind of interesting.. I would like to point out this seems to be specific for the US. But also.. In that case, when I commission an artist to paint my portrait, surely I can't claim to be the artist.. But I'm no lawyer. I'm not sure there is a contractual agreement in GitHub's co-pilot that says: "Any code you write here is commissioned work". But honestly I didn't read the T&C's. So I think you MAY have debunked my analogy, but not the main reason for the analogy.

grayclhn 4y ago

I mean, it's nice that they have a setting for the bare minimum a lazy undergrad would do to avoid getting caught for plagarism — replace some of the words in the copied paragraph with replacements from a thesaurus. It's not something I'd personally expect to hold up under real scrutiny though.

yucky 4y ago

It does sound like the value of code creators is going to soon see significant downward pressure.

natefinch 4y ago
I'm sure that's what people said when they went from punch cards to assembly, and from assembly to C, and from C to Java.... and yet, here we are. Tools that let us write higher level code faster, just allow us to create more complicated software in a reasonable amount of time.
- yucky 4y ago
  I think the argument is now it takes considerably less brain power to do, thereby increasing the labor pool and devaluing the output.
  - natefinch 4y ago
    That's still 100% true of the examples I mentioned. There's always a higher level to consider. When we moved to C, we could stop worrying about what registers we were using. When we moved to python/Java we could stop worrying about managing memory. When we moved to web frameworks we stoping writing the guts of our servers. And if anything, programmers have become even better paid, despite so many more people in the industry.
    - Naracion 4y ago
      I agree with you--however, programmers have not become even better paid because society values programmers. They have become better paid because software is a relatively new artefact in human society which has taken the human life by storm, which has made software companies immensely profitable, which meant more companies wanted to create software and attract the people that could help them do it. As software takes a back seat (or at least a "normal" seat) in society, would we see a normalization of income? Could this be hastened by the development and introduction of tools such as copilot? Potentially, unless there are new / better things that humans can claim they can provide compared to AI tools. This is the point where I think you and I agree, and I think it's your primary argument in any case (unless I'm mistaken).