• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I don’t know why people think AI changes shit…

    If you copy/pasted the code is it the same?

    If you manually retyped the code is that different?

    What if someone is reading it aloud and you type it?

    How many errors need to happen during transposition that you then fix to call it a new code.

    People just want to find the laziest way to rip shit off, and right now that’s AI doing it and claiming ignorance that it’s not a blatant copy.

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      Since the late 70sc “clean-room” reverse engineering involves have an “engineer” (coder) read the source code, and write a neutral, plain English specification of what that software does, feature by feature; function by function.

      Then, pass that off to another engineer who never sees the original code, and writes their own implementation that matches the specs.

      This is how the IBM PC’s bios was cloned and the compatible market was born.

      AI changes shit because:

      1. AI cannot create a copyrighted work. It’s a tool output. Depends on if the prompter has fed any of the source into the model, or maybe even if the prompter has seen the source code, or if the model was trained on it. This stuff hasn’t been tested in court yet AFAIK
      2. There are people out there who WORSHIP the LLMs, who believe that if copyright, FOSS licenses, etc become a problem for them, it’s because those thing were DESIGNED to HATE FREEDOM and stifle this genius, species-altering, once in a universe transformation that AI will bring. (Basically they’re psychotic and they’re what we made fun of Apple fanboys for sounding like, even though the Apple fanboys didn’t sound anywhere near this evangelistic)
    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      9 days ago

      The whole point of the Ship of Theseus is that you never change the ship. You just change one part at a time until every part has been replaced. Is it still the same ship?

      That’s what OOP was referencing, but it’s a kind of loose reference. I guess they’re assuming it’s a different ship?

      There’s not supposed to be a solid answer. You’re just supposed to think about it.

      • Bonsoir@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        Yeah, but the comparison translates poorly to software, since there is no way to “take” a whole ship, only to copy it. Whether you copy it directly or rewrite it, the material is the same, because you have the same information in the end. It would be closer to take the ship apart and rebuild it exactly the same using the same planks. Now, if you ask the AI to re-write a software in a different language, or using different patterns, that would be something else. If it writes the open-source project exactly the same, byte by byte without the license, then it’s simply breaking the terms.