[eqvinox]

> I have yet to hear a convincing case for why what the LLM vendors did/do is different than what humans do to learn and become proficient in producing their own work.

Humans don't read other codebases en masse. Hell, I haven't read the entirety of our own codebase. I learned by doing, from books (that I paid for or legally borrowed), and yes, by looking at a small amount of other people's code (permitted by the respective licenses).

Humans are not remix machines, AIs (currently) are.

[bayindirh]

Plus, humans do not remember any code base they read verbatim indefinitely, strip its license and mix into any codebase regardless of its license.

Moreover humans learn and evolve their knowledge from other experiences other than books and others’ code.

As you said LLMs just remix something semi randomly according to a weighted graph with no underlying knowledge or understanding whatsoever.

[bombcar]

Exactly. I could from memory recite the main story beats of The Lord of the Rings, and probably even get to the detail of all major plot points and some minor ones, and maybe even some famous phrases.

An LLM unburdened by restraint could like produce page upon page of story nearly identical to the original.