The current capabilities of AI are built on the backs of open-source contributors and the unauthorized ingestion of copyrighted books. By keeping our code entirely open to AI web scrapers, we are giving away the tools that will eventually eliminate our jobs as programmers.
We urgently need to modify our Open Source licenses to prevent AI models from exploiting our work without permission or compensation. We need to protect our profession before it's too late. Has anyone started adopting licenses specifically designed to block AI training?
Wouldn't work: the copyright lawsuit against Anthropic ruled that while copyright infringement (AKA piracy) to get the training data for training an AI is still copyright infringement, actually doing the training once you have the data is not itself a copyright violation.
Simply making the code available, regardless of the licence, allows present and future AI to train on them.
But that was in America, where big corporations do whatever they want; in Europe, that shouldn't be allowed. Changing just a few lines in the open-source licenses could save us in the future.
> But that was in America, where big corporations do whatever they want;
The ruling was very much not "big corporations do whatever they want", hence where I wrote "while copyright infringement (AKA piracy) to get the training data for training an AI is still copyright infringement"
> Changing just a few lines in the open-source licenses could save us in the future.
Could? No, not when so much of the coding work gets done in America. Not when the leading AI are American models. Not when so much of the open source code itself is American in origin. Not when the code is hosted on American servers.
Now, the code AI makes being bad, that might save our profession, but I'm not counting on it. I've not figured out what to do next, but I don't think I'm staying in software.
While laws can indeed be changed, "just" isn't the right word for it. Very few nations empower the electorate to direct binding referendums on topics of the electorate's choice. Switzerland does, I can't think of any others.
The current capabilities of AI are built on the backs of open-source contributors and the unauthorized ingestion of copyrighted books. By keeping our code entirely open to AI web scrapers, we are giving away the tools that will eventually eliminate our jobs as programmers.
We urgently need to modify our Open Source licenses to prevent AI models from exploiting our work without permission or compensation. We need to protect our profession before it's too late. Has anyone started adopting licenses specifically designed to block AI training?
Wouldn't work: the copyright lawsuit against Anthropic ruled that while copyright infringement (AKA piracy) to get the training data for training an AI is still copyright infringement, actually doing the training once you have the data is not itself a copyright violation.
Simply making the code available, regardless of the licence, allows present and future AI to train on them.
But that was in America, where big corporations do whatever they want; in Europe, that shouldn't be allowed. Changing just a few lines in the open-source licenses could save us in the future.
> But that was in America, where big corporations do whatever they want;
The ruling was very much not "big corporations do whatever they want", hence where I wrote "while copyright infringement (AKA piracy) to get the training data for training an AI is still copyright infringement"
> Changing just a few lines in the open-source licenses could save us in the future.
Could? No, not when so much of the coding work gets done in America. Not when the leading AI are American models. Not when so much of the open source code itself is American in origin. Not when the code is hosted on American servers.
Now, the code AI makes being bad, that might save our profession, but I'm not counting on it. I've not figured out what to do next, but I don't think I'm staying in software.
> Wouldn't work: the copyright lawsuit against Anthropic ruled that
Then just make it work? Humans invented the laws, the rules, etc.
While laws can indeed be changed, "just" isn't the right word for it. Very few nations empower the electorate to direct binding referendums on topics of the electorate's choice. Switzerland does, I can't think of any others.
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