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hperrin

@ hperrin @lemmy.ca

Posts
6
Comments
1372
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

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  • Do you want to explain to me what, in those two paragraphs, means that the use of spell checkers and LLMs is equivalent with regard to copyrightability? It seems like those paragraphs make it clear that the use of spell checkers is not the same as LLMs.

    The policy I use bans “generative AI model” output. Generative AI is a pretty well defined term:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_AI

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/generative%20AI

    If you have trouble determining whether something is a generative AI model, you can usually just look up how it is described in the promotional materials or on Wikipedia.

    Type: Large language model, Generative pre-trained transformer

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_(language_model)

    I never said it violates GPL to include public domain code. I’m not sure where you got that from. What I said is that public domain code can’t really be released under the GPL. You can try, but it’s not enforceable. As in, you can release it under that license, but I can still do whatever I want with it, license be damned, because it’s public domain.

    I did that with this vibe coded project:

    https://github.com/hperrin/gnata

    I just took it and rereleased it as pubic domain, because that’s what it is anyway.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

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  • So why invite them to?

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

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  • Nobody can verify that the output of an LLM isn’t from its training data except those with access to its training data.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the “traditional elements of authorship” are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user. Based on the Office’s understanding of the generative AI technologies currently available, users do not exercise ultimate creative control over how such systems interpret prompts and generate material. Instead, these prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist—they identify what the prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are implemented in its output. For example, if a user instructs a text-generating technology to “write a poem about copyright law in the style of William Shakespeare,” she can expect the system to generate text that is recognizable as a poem, mentions copyright, and resembles Shakespeare’s style. But the technology will decide the rhyming pattern, the words in each line, and the structure of the text. When an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship. As a result, that material is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application.

    That seems very clear to me. Generative AI output is not human authored, and therefore not copyrighted.

    The policy I use also makes very clear the definition of AI generated material:

    https://sciactive.com/human-contribution-policy/#Definitions

    I’m not exactly sure how you can possibly think there is an equivalence between a tool like a spelling and grammar checker and a generative AI, but there’s a reason the copyright office will register works that have been authored using spelling and grammar checkers, but not works that have been authored using LLMs.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Yes, that makes sense. People have always been able to intentionally commit copyright infringement. However, it has historically been fairly difficult to unintentionally commit copyright infringement. That’s no longer the case. AI makes it very easy to unintentionally commit copyright infringement. That’s a good reason to ban it outright.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Unless the code the AI generated is a copy of copyrighted code, of course. Then it would be copyright infringement.

    I can cause the AI to spit out code that I own the copyright to, because it was trained on my code too. If someone used that code without including attribution to me (the requirement of the license I release my code under), that would be copyright infringement. Do you understand what I mean?

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • The copyright office said material generated by AI is not copyrighted, even if that material is subsequently revised by the AI through additional prompts. That includes code. The GPL can only be used on copyrighted code. It is a copyleft license because it uses copyright law as a mechanism to enforce its terms. If you believe you can enforce a license on public domain material, that’s simply a gross misunderstanding of copyright law.

    Yes, it will hopefully be a very small part of the kernel, but what happens thirty years from now if the kernel is all AI generated code? It may be a slippery slope, but it’s a valid slippery slope. The more the kernel is AI generated, the less of it the license can cover.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Sure, you can license them, but that license is unenforceable, because you don’t own the copyrights, so you can’t sue anyone for copyright infringement. And you’d have to be a fool to agree to a license for public domain material. You can do whatever you want with it, no license necessary.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • If the author is an LLM, then the author is not a human.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. Any portions of the kernel that are public domain can be used by anyone for any purpose without following the terms of the GPL. AI generated code is public domain. To make sure all parts of the kernel are protected by the GPL, public domain code should not be accepted unless absolutely necessary.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

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  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Distributing under the GPL is a software license agreement which is absolutely a contract:

    A software license agreement is a legal contract that grants you permission to use software without transferring ownership. The software creator retains intellectual property rights while giving you specific usage rights under defined terms and conditions.

    https://ironcladapp.com/journal/contracts/software-license-agreement

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Sure, you can license it whatever you want, but I can too, because it’s public domain. And neither of us can enforce those license terms on the other, because again, it’s public domain.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • The copyright office has made it explicitly clear that those tools do not interfere with the traditional elements of authorship, and that the use of LLMs does. So, if you don’t want to take my word for it, take the US Copyright Office’s word for it.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • Copyleft doesn’t mean it’s not copyrighted. Copyleft is not a legal term. “Copyleft” licenses are enforced through copyright ownership.

    Did you read the quotes from the copyright office I linked to? I am going to go ahead and trust the copyright office over you on issues of copyrightability.

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • It is though. If you commit copyrighted code that was output by an LLM, you do have to follow the license of that code. If you don’t, that’s copyright infringement.

    Even if the code isn’t copyrighted code, then it’s public domain code that can’t be copyrighted:

    https://sciactive.com/human-contribution-policy/#More-Information

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • According to the US Copyright Office, AI generated material cannot be copyrighted (unless of course it’s plagiarized copyrighted code). That’s reason enough to leave it out of the kernel. If the kernel’s license becomes unenforceable because of public domain code, the kernel is tainted.

    Edit: I don’t know why people are downvoting this. It’s literally just the truth: https://sciactive.com/human-contribution-policy/#More-Information

  • Linux lays down the law on AI-generated code, says yes to Copilot, no to AI slop, and humans take the fall for mistakes — after months of fierce debate, Torvalds and maintainers come to an agreement

    Jump

  • You don’t need AI to autocomplete code. We’ve had autocomplete for over 30 years.