All it takes is one person using an LLM tainted with proprietary code which then just gives them that code line for line to undo decades of courtroom defense.
Not only that, but AI output can't be licensed/copyrighted. The GPL license no longer covers the kernel in legal terms.
There seems to be legal discussions about that. It’s not quite as simple as you say:
However, there may be cases in which a different assessment is justified, namely when users use and operate the LLM as a tool that merely implements their personal creative intent. This could be compared somewhat more vividly to using a paintbrush. If the brush merely rolls over the paper, for example because it is dropped, no copyright-protected work is created, even if paint remains on the paper. However, if a painter deliberately swings the brush in a certain way, a protected painting can be created. If AI is used in a comparable way a copyright-protected work can indeed be created.
https://kpmg-law.de/en/ai-and-copyright-what-is-permitted-when-using-llms/
Yeah any decision would be on a case by case basis, which is normally something you'd want to avoid.
I've seen a couple of Linux devs talk about how they just give a prompt to claude and walk away leaving it alone to spit out the code, none of which can be licensed as GPL. But good luck working out what specific lines of what specific patches of theirs used an LLM vs. were re-written or such.
I've seen a couple of Linux devs talk about how they just give a prompt to claude and walk away leaving it alone to spit out the code
While I share Linus opinion on LLMs, I think doing this shit is extremely stupid and lazy.
Best to not believe anything KPMG says about AI.
Actually if KPMG say the sky is blue you should probably go outside and check and also make sure you still have your wallet.
yeah and the paintbrush somehow has abstracted access to millions of proprietary and copyleft licensed source code in forms of weight.
this is a clear misuse and abuse of any fair use rights, and clear push to centralisation of copyright to only a few companies with big budgets that can defend themselves.
i mean, can you really challenge and win against openai, a company backed by the govt, that your copyleft source code are misused as training data?
this is FUD and not true. projects are licensed not lines of code.
But if there are proprietary lines of code that end up in a project with an open license, you get a violation. 🤷♂️
what is a proprietary line of code? how do you look at a for loop or uf statement and say "i own that". i can tell you that in all the huge applications i have worked on in the last 27 years, there isnt special proprietary code. there is proprietary data but not code.
the only time you really have proprietary codeis specialized code talking to a specialized device. so maybe a closed source driver.
I have worked at two companies back-to-back for a total of about 8 years, so significantly less time, that both definitely had proprietary code.
It is code that does things that nobody else is doing, or able to do, and patented, I believe(?).
But nice anecdote. 👍
Ist that a common thing that LLMs using proprietary code for coding tasks?
Because I don’t think so.
They use everything for everything, that's the big issue. Also gpl code. Anything they can trawl through they use. And replicate, in part or in full.
They take code snippets and copy and paste them? Or do they create own code based on what they’ve learned by trawling?
LLMs don't "create". Under the hood, they're tokenizing the queries, looking for "clouds" of tokens that are similar to the query, then returning a sequence of tokens (with some random noise thrown in) that match what their training data says the answer should be.
In short: all LLM code is an amalgamation of their training data by definition. If there's nothing similar in there, it's literally not possible for it to be part of any response.
You’re exactly right. I should have used „generate“ instead of „create“.The point is I don’t think LLMs normally use copyrighted code in a way that would hurt open source projects.
Under the hood, they're tokenizing the queries, looking for "clouds" of tokens that are similar to the query, then returning a sequence of tokens (with some random noise thrown in) that match what their training data says the answer should be.
Lol, so how do humans code in comparison?
You’re exactly right. I should have used „generate“ instead of „create“
Did you purposely respond like an AI?
Damn, I forgot the em dash.
The point is I don’t think LLMs normally use copyrighted code in a way that would hurt open source projects.
I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, and copyright for code was a hot mess even before LLMs got involved. With how many opportunistic copyright/patent trolls there are and how easily convinced judges have been in the past, it could go either way.
Lol, so how do humans code in comparison?
The good programmers normally code by breaking down the problem into constituent parts and logically working through the problem, step by step. What differentiates this from tokenization is that instead of just looking for code that is similar for a similar problem, programmers can usually understand the effects of each line of code, visualize what the state of each variable will be in that step (or dump out the variables to look directly if unsure), and then move on to the next step. This logical problem-solving approach is fundamentally different from a tokenization+noise looking for a similar-looking problem approach. For one thing, you can solve problems that haven't been solved before.
Human programmers at least can tell you where they got a snippet they copied, whether it was in the docs, stack overflow or elsewhere, and you can try to keep attribution if you care about compliance. Not only that, but most of our skills are related to designing stuff and recognizing which pattern to use, the specific implementation isn't necessary the same unless we go look for whatever we saw in the past, as our memories don't just record everything and repeat it word by word. And after picking up a new language or framework I only need to look around when using a third party library or some API I'm less familiar with, or when something breaks.
What do you think the LLM is using for reference when generating code? It can't create from nothing.
Yah, before AI there's never been a chance of proprietary code entering the Linux ecosystem and they have no defences against it at all.
Human written code these days feels equivalent to a unique and soulful artisan made item whereas AI code is like a soulless and defected factory made imitation. I'd much, much, much, rather support artisans over factory made slop and even before AI, artisan work has been well known to be significantly higher quality than factory made stuff. For something as foundational and important as a kernel, I really think AI has no place in it.
All I care about is whether it works and is secure. Bonus points for cheaper and faster development. If artisan code gets us there, sure. If AI code gets us there, great. I trust Linus to know what works and what doesn't.
I care about the environment. 🤷♂️
I suppose the big issue for me is that I'm also an artist and I view code similarly, especially when I combine code with my graphics. I understand though that with a large project you are going to have some amount of people using AI even if you try to filter them out, so I can partially understand his stance. However I really disagree with him when he says it's a useful tool, given how AI causes brain rot, productivity losses, and environmental destruction.
As for productivity losses and environmental destruction, that's sort of what I was referring to when I said "bonus points for cheaper and faster development". The environmental destruction refers to energy usage. Productivity can be thought of as time usage. If AI can be cheaper than humans in both time and energy, then that's a win.
There's a related discussion about how the context here is mainly about finding vulnerabilies with AI. And that is one where AI does seem to be faster and cheaper than using humans. Since AI is now finding kernel vulnerabilities that have been lurking there for 15+ years.
Maybe code generation will get there too.
As an artist you might also be worried about how AI is trained on copyrighted data. But I personally don't really care about copyright
While I am very anti-genAI, I'm much more okay with analytical AI as long as it's not blindly trusted. Technically they don't need an LLM as they could use something smaller and optimized just to find vulnerabilities. I still take issue with ethical and environmental concerns but I think there are solutions to them. We just need to slow down, take the time to do things right, and ditch the whole "move fast and break things" mindset commonly seen in tech, but I doubt that will ever happen.
What's your argument against generative AI but not analytical AI? From what I've seen the arguments for/against one also work for the other
My viewpoint is that genAI will always cause cognitive decline no matter what however I haven't come across any studies yet about analytical AI also brain rotting people. If it's trained on data with consent from it's owners' and they find a solution to the environmental problems, I'd be fine with it as long as it's used for good purposes.
This post about AI detecting cancer makes me believe it might be genuinely useful, although of course it can be used for despicable, evil purposes as well.
Also, humans really like making/designing things. I don't see the point in automating activities that many people love doing. Every time I come across an ad advertising image gen or whatever it just feels so out of touch with humanity.
Fair. I think if somebody gets brainrot from using AI that's their own problem, just like a programmer losing their coding skills after become a product manager. I don't see how that makes AI bad.
I don't see the point in automating activities that many people love doing.
Some people like the process, some people like the product. For those who only care about the product, why not let them use AI? Doesn't stop you from enjoying the process.
I admit that this is getting pretty far from the original discussion though so no worries if you'd rather end it here. I just have fun thinking about these things
In the past all you had was human-made so this distinction wasn't even a thing.
I'm just very bitter that people will probably be made to use AI. Coding, as it was done before the advent of LLMs, was fun to me. Being a prompt engineer isn't. I hope and pray AI isn't here to stay, but if it is, what I thought would be a career full of doing something I enjoy, is just going to be a boring slog. (I currently took a different job outside of tech over this—I graduated with a CS degree as LLM usage was exploding and getting forced on everyone.) Years wasted prepping for a career I'll never do, but at least nobody can force me to use LLMs in hobby projects.
But even if I do not code for work, I dread every non-manual job turning into one where I am expected to use generative AI and criticized and quickly fired if I don't. I liked so many aspects of almost any type of work, but I really do not like generative AI, trusting this black box based off of statistical patterns instead of a model of the real world, and if it enters every type of non-manual labor I'll have a shit sandwich to eat at any job I do unless I, delicate little woman who was raised to think I'd be able to have a white collar office job and would never have to earn money with muscles and the literal sweat of my brow, decide to start doing hard manual labor.
And then even if I wiggle out of it somehow as a white collar worker or find I take well to manual labor, I cannot guarantee my doctor didn't just ChatGPT my symptoms, the bridge I drive over wasn't glued together with nondeterministic predictions from generative AI instead of actual simulations based on fact…
Extremely unhappy to start life with "you're good at do many things, you'll do great!" only to get the rug pulled right when I start applying with "none of this matters when AI can do it much faster" so quick with little adjustment time. And with "I know I'll enjoy working, most seem interesting, and I have diverse skills in case something happens to one industry, how lucky am I" to dreading when it starts to become the daily AI-prompting slog and I have the "daily grind" "ugh when does it end" everyone else does, or when I'm just totally cut out entirely unless I am willing to work my body instead of my brain. And so I have a vested interest in AI not becoming normalized or endorsed or approved by people lots of others listen to like Linus Torvalds. Because it is happening, all I have is sadness and anxiety for when work starts being prompt engineering.
Lmao I'm in the same boat as you. I'm a recent-ish CS grad with no job and vibe coding (or cuck coding as I like to call it) sucks the joy out of every part of CS to the point where I've considered going back to college to get a different degree.
Also, I've actually worked a manual labor job before and am fully aware of how shit they are. Very underpaid and unappreciated work imo.
AI is a tool, just like other tools we use.
This argument has, to me, always reeked of naivety. Heroin is a tool, but it has clear ethical implications, and we make attempts as a society to manage those. So is nuclear, and a particularly relevant one, since many leading AI figures have officially and explicitly stated AI is as dangerous as nuclear weapons. There are countless other examples of "tools" that require moral judgement (all of them, really).
I think Linus is being naive, and given his position of power, irresponsible.
And no, AI isn't perfect.
I could write an essay about how much of an understatement, to the point of being wrong, this is. Many, far more capable than me, already have.
This is NOT some kind of "social warrior" project, never has been, and never will be.
No, of course it's not, but he seems to be treating it like ethics and context are for children.
It makes me worried for the Linux project. Not that he's willing to use AI, but that this is how he sees it. This is a learning experience for me.
I'm reminded of this quote that, to be honest I don't really understand, but feels relevant
Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the 'content' of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind...The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.
-- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
The discussion should stay technical.
Restricting discourse to a single realm makes it by definition a monoculture, which then intrinsically debases it to a fragile and brittle construct.
LLMs may well be useful and/or effective from narrowly myopic perspectives, but I’m yet to identify any which could legitimately be framed as justifiable or ethical.
It’s particularly galling given a fundamental aspect of how LLMs function is to incorporate myriad dimensions of input, yet to arrive at anything resembling a defence requires cherry picking arguments.
Once again, Linus steps in and delivers a reasonable take that cuts through the whole argument. It's hard to imagine what Linux culture will be like without him.
Yeah without a single strong voice with implicit authority there’s really no telling what will happen i think
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