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493 points todsacerdoti | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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benlivengood ◴[] No.44383064[source]
Open source and libre/free software are particularly vulnerable to a future where AI-generated code is ruled to be either infringing or public domain.

In the former case, disentangling AI-edits from human edits could tie a project up in legal proceedings for years and projects don't have any funding to fight a copyright suit. Specifically, code that is AI-generated and subsequently modified or incorporated in the rest of the code would raise the question of whether subsequent human edits were non-fair-use derivative works.

In the latter case the license restrictions no longer apply to portions of the codebase raising similar issues from derived code; a project that is only 98% OSS/FS licensed suddenly has much less leverage in takedowns to companies abusing the license terms; having to prove that infringers are definitely using the human-generated and licensed code.

Proprietary software is only mildly harmed in either case; it would require speculative copyright owners to disassemble their binaries and try to make the case that AI-generated code infringed without being able to see the codebase itself. And plenty of proprietary software has public domain code in it already.

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AJ007 ◴[] No.44383229[source]
I understand what experienced developers don't want random AI contributions from no-knowledge "developers" contributing to a project. In any situation, if a human is review AI code line by line that would tie up humans for years, even ignoring anything legally.

#1 There will be no verifiable way to prove something was AI generated beyond early models.

#2 Software projects that somehow are 100% human developed will not be competitive with AI assisted or written projects. The only room for debate on that is an apocalypse level scenario where humans fail to continue producing semiconductors or electricity.

#3 If a project successfully excludes AI contributions (not clear how other than controlling contributions to a tight group of anti-AI fanatics), it's just going to be cloned, and the clones will leave it in the dust. If the license permits forking then it could be forked too, but cloning and purging any potential legal issues might be preferred.

There still is a path for open source projects. It will be different. There's going to be much, much more software in the future and it's not going to be all junk (although 99% might.)

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1. devmor ◴[] No.44384448[source]
None of your claims here are based in factual assertion. These are unproven, wishful fantasies that may or may not be eventually true.

No one should be evaluating or writing policy based on fantasy.

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2. brabel ◴[] No.44384738[source]
Are you familiar with the futures market? It’s all about what you call fantasy ! Similarly, if you are determining the strategy of your organization, all you have to help you is “fantasy”. By the time evidence exists in sufficient quantity your lunch has already been eaten long ago. A good CEO is one that can see where the market is going before anyone else. You may be right that AI is just a fad , but given how much the big companies and all the major startups in the last few years are investing on it, it’s overwhelmingly a fringe position to have at this point.
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3. devmor ◴[] No.44387203[source]
Both the futures market and resource planning are based on evidential standards (usually). When you make those decisions without any reasoning, you are gambling, and might as well go to the casino.

But notably, FOSS development is neither a corporation or stock trading. It is focused on longevity and maintainability.