[kwlug-disc] GitHub CoPilot discussion

[Ronald Barnes]

Chris Frey wrote on 2022-07-22 14:28:

> I'm curious about the other direction when it comes to copyright.
> If you include code written by an AI, is it really your copyright anymore?

There's very little case law involving open source licenses, so... unsure.

However, at least as far as GPL is concerned, AI generated output cannot 
be copyrighted if I understand Hayden.


And, since the AI is "mentoring" / assisting, the actual human author 
would retain copyright.

So, IAAL, but yes, it's your copyright.



> Maybe not for the exact code, but now merely for the aggregation,
> kind of like how books made up of other people's stories can be
> copyrighted in the aggregate.

I think the analogy isn't quite useful, it'd be more like "hey, book X 
has that same phrase, so you've plagiarized it" being an unconvincing 
argument.


Also, CoPilot is aware of variable declarations, etc. inside the code 
base being worked on, so it uses the author's own stylings for 
suggestions, if anything it would lead to self-plagiarization.



> Interesting to think about anyway.

Definitely!


They certainly make an interesting case that CoPilot is very much in the 
spirit of open source software (access to others' code for learning and 
extending).

And, for languages that are falling out of use (Cobol?), having an AI 
assist anyone wanting to take up these "dead" languages can help 
preserve them.


So many interesting takes in that podcast.



Thanks for your interesting thoughts Chris!

rb