Something I’ve been thinking about, somewhat related but also tangential to this topic:

The more code gets generated by AI, won’t that mean taking source code from a company becomes legal? Isn’t it true that works created with generative AI can’t be copyrighted?

I wonder if large companies have throught of this risk. Once a company’s product source code reaches a certain percentage of AI generation it no longer has copyright. Any employee with access can just take it and sell it to someone else, legally, right?

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thewebguyd 5 hours ago | parent [-]

In theory, companies are all going to have an increasingly difficult time suing competitors for copyright infringement. By extension, this is also why, IMO, its important to keep AI generated code out of open source/free software projects.

The recent rulings on copyright though also need to be further tested, different judges may have different ideas on what "significant human contribution" looks like. The only thing we know for certain is that the prompt doesn't count.

My guess is that instead of enforcing via copyright, companies will use contracts & trade secret laws. Source code and algorithms counts as a trade secret, so in your example copyright doesn't even matter, the employee would be liable for stealing trade secrets.

AI generated code slowly stripping the ability of a project to enforce copyright protections though is a much bigger risk for free software.

	▲	dangus 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wonder if an argument could be made that because the LLM came up with the implementation that it’s not a trade secret? Of course with lease intent is a very important concept. I doubt anyone is getting away with what I described. It’s just interesting stuff to potentially rethink.