[jakkos]

> Pre-training is, actually, our collective gift

I feel like this wording isn't great when there are many impactful open source programmers who have explicitly stated that they don't want their code used to train these models and licensed their work in a world where LLMs didn't exist. It wasn't their "gift", it was unwillingly taken from them.

> I'm a programmer, and I use automatic programming. The code I generate in this way is mine. My code, my output, my production. I, and you, can be proud.

I've seen LLMs generate code that I have immediately recognized as being copied a from a book or technical blog post I've read before (e.g. exact same semantics, very similar comment structure and variable names). Even if not legally required, crediting where you got ideas and code from is the least you can do. While LLMs just launder code as completely your own.

[p-e-w]

> I feel like this wording isn't great when there are many impactful open source programmers who have explicitly stated that they don't want their code used to train these models

That’s been the fate of many creators since the dawn of time. Kafka explicitly stated that he wanted his works to be burned after his death. So when you’re reading about Gregor’s awkward interactions with his sister, you’re literally consuming the private thoughts of a stranger who stated plainly that he didn’t want them shared with anyone.

Yet people still talk about Kafka’s “contribution to literature” as if it were otherwise, with most never even bothering to ask themselves whether they should be reading that stuff at all.

[projektfu]

If he didn't want us to read Metamorphosis he probably shouldn't have had it published. It was, long before his death.

But it's true much of his work was unpublished when he died and was "rescued" or "stolen", depending on what narrative you prefer.

[yuvadam]

I don't think it's possible to separate any open source contribution from the ones that came before it, as we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. Every developer learns from their predecessors and adapts patterns and code from existing projects.

[antirez]

Exactly that. And all the books about, for instance, operating systems, totally based on the work of others: their ideas where collected and documented, the exact algorithms, and so forth. All the human culture worked this way. Moreover there is a strong pattern of the most prolific / known open source developers being NOT against the fact that their code was used for training: they can't talk for everybody but it is a signal that for many this use is within the scope of making source code available.

[jakkos]

> their ideas where collected and documented

Yeah, documented *and credited*. I'm not against the idea of disseminating knowledge, and even with my misgivings about LLMs, I wouldn't have said anything if this blog post was simply "LLMs are really useful".

My comment was in response to you essentially saying "all the criticisms of LLMs aren't real, and you should be uncompromisingly proud about using them".

> Moreover there is a strong pattern of the most prolific / known open source developers being NOT against the fact that their code was used for training

I think it's easy to get "echo-chambered" by who you follow online with this, my experience has been the opposite, i don't think it's clear what the reality is.

[jakkos]

If you fork an open source project and nuke the git history, that's considered to be a "dick move" because you are erasing the record of people's contributions.

LLMs are doing this on an industrial scale.

[OJFord]

I don't really understand how that isn't allowed/disallowed simply on the basis of whether the licence permits use without attribution?

[FeteCommuniste]

The hard truth is that if you're big enough (and the original creator is small enough) you can just do whatever you want and to hell with what any license says about it.

[zahlman]

To my understanding, the expensive lawyers hired by the biggest people around, filtered through layers of bureaucracy and translated to software teams, still result in companies mostly avoiding GPL code.

[armchairhacker]

I’ve been thinking that information provenance would be very useful for LLMs. Not just for attribution (git authors), but the LLM would know (and be able to control) which outputs are derived from reliable sources (e.g. Wikipedia vs a Reddit post; also which outputs are derived from ideologically-aligned sources, which would make LLMs more personal and subjectively better, but also easier to bias and generate deliberate misinformation).

“Information provenance” could (and I think most likely would, although I’m very unfamiliar with LLM internals) be which sources most plausibly derive an output, so even output that exists today could eventually get proper attribution.

At least today if you know something’s origin, and it’s both obvious and publicly online, you have proof via the Internet Archive.

[heavyset_go]

You can say that about literally everything, yet we have robust systems for protecting intellectual property, anyway.

[Imustaskforhelp]

> I don't think it's possible to separate any open source contribution from the ones that came before it, as we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. Every developer learns from their predecessors and adapts patterns and code from existing projects.

Yes but you can also ask the developer (wheter in libera.irc, or say if its a foss project on any foss talk, about which books and blogs they followed for code patterns & inspirations & just talk to them)

I do feel like some aspects of this are gonna get eaten away by the black box if we do spec-development imo.

[jll29]

> there are many impactful open source programmers who have explicitly stated that they don't want their code used to train these models and licensed their work in a world where LLMs didn't exist. It wasn't their "gift", it was unwillingly taken from them.

There are subtle legal differences between "free open source" licensing and putting things in the public domain. If you use an open source license, you could forbid LLM training (in licensing law, contrary to all other areas of law, anything that is not granted to licensees is forbidden). Then you can take the big guys (MSFT, Meta, OpenAI, Google) to court if you can demonstrate they violated your terms.

If you place your software into the public domain, any use is fair, including ways to exploit the code or its derivatives not invented at the time of release.

Curiosly, doesn't the GPL even imply that if you pre-tain an LLM with GPLed code and use it to generate code (Claude Code etc.) that all generated code -- as derived intellectual property that it clearly is -- must also be open sourced as per GPL terms? (It would seem in the spirit of the licensors.) Haven't seen this raised or discussed anywhere yet.

[zahlman]

> If you use an open source license, you could forbid LLM training

Established OSS licenses are all from before anyone imagined that LLMs would come into existence, let alone train on and then generate code. Discrimination on purpose is counter to OSI principles (https://opensource.org/osd):

> 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

The GPL argument you describe hinges on making the legal case that LLMs produce "derived works". When the output can't be clearly traced to source input (even the system itself doesn't know how) it becomes rather difficult to argue that in court.

[singpolyma3]

You pre suppose that output is derive work (not a given) and that training is not fair use (also not a given).

If the courts decide to apply the law as you assume the AI companies are all dead. But they are all betting that's not going to be the case. And since so much of the industry is taking the bet with them... The courts will take that into account

[sneak]

If you publish your code to others under permissive licenses, people using it to do things you do not want is not something being unwillingly taken from you.

You can do whatever you want with a gift. Once you release your code as free software, it is no longer yours. Your opinions about what is done with it are irrelevant.

[wernsey]

But the license terms state under which conditions the code is released.

For example: MIT license states has this clause "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

It stands to reason that if an LLM outputs something based on MIT-licensed code then that output should at least contain that copyright because it's what the original author wished.

And I saw a comment below arguing that knowledge cannot be copyrighted, but the code is an expression of that knowledge and that most certainly can be protected by copyright.

[vbezhenar]

Intellectual property is not absolute and can be expropriated, just like any other property.

[AnimalMuppet]

"Expropriated" usually means a government order, though. Do LLMs have one?

[hjoutfbkfd]

when you inplement a quick sort, do you credit Hoare in the comments?

[jakkos]

No, in the same way that I wouldn't cite Euler every time I used one of his theorems - because it's so well known that its history is well documented in countless places.

However, if I was using a more recent/niche/unknown theorem, it would absolutely be considered bad practice not to cite where I got it from.

[OJFord]

If I was implementing any known (named) algorithm intentionally I think I would absolutely say so in a comment (`// here we use quick sort to...` and maybe why it's the choice) and then it's easy for someone to look up and see it's due to Hoare or whoever on Wikipedia etc.

[antirez]

Now many will downvote you because this is an algorithm and not some code. But the reality is that programming is in large part built looking at somebody else code / techniques, internalizing them, and reproducing them again with changes. So actually it works like that for code as well.

[frizlab]

> It wasn't their "gift", it was unwillingly taken from them.

Yes. Exactly. As a developer in that case I feel almost violated in my trust in “the internet.” Well it’s even worse, I did not really trust it, but did not think it could be that bad.

[bko]

I don't understand this perspective. Programmers often scoff at most other examples of intellectual property, some throwing it out all together. I remember reading Google vs Oracle where Oracle sued Google for stealing code to perform a range check, about about 9 lines long, used to check array index bounds.

I guess the difference is AI companies bad? This is transformative technology creating trillions in value and democratizing information, all subsidized by VC money. Why would anyone in open source who claims to have noble causes be against this? Because their repo will no longer get stars? Because no one will read their asinine stack overflow answer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....

[bitwize]

Hot take: The Supreme Court should have sided with Oracle. APIs are a clear example of unique expression, and there is no statute exempting them specifically from copyright protection. If they are not protected by copyright, is anything really? What meaning has copyright law then?

[CamperBob2]

Why is copyright law more important than anything else? AI is likely to drive the next stage of humanity's intellectual evolution, while copyright is a leaky legal abstraction that we pulled out of our asses a couple hundred years ago.

One of these is much more important than the other. If the copyright cartels insist on fighting AI, then they must lose decisively.

[asdflkasdgf]

Hot take: Intellectual property law is stifling innovation and humanity would be better served scrapping it.