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Why Linus is Right and AI is Wrong (raymyers.org)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] 10 points 3 months ago (14 children)

The problem is, LLMs (Ai) isn't just another tool. Even if the code is reviewed well and not slop at all, there are inherent uncertainties using such tools to generate code. We don't know how the future of code generated by Ai can be licensed and used; it does not even provide the original license of the code it was trained on. This is not just ideological, there are unsolved risks. And this is the best case scenario, as we assume the developers aren't slopping around.

Mind you, I'm critical about Ai, especially the online tools. But I'm not entirely against it, yet. I can however understand why people are against using Ai in Linux is a critical issue, for the reasons I described above. For myself I just play around with local Ai (on my 8gb VRAM+32gb RAM btw), so you see I'm not entirely against it.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    That's a fair point but again, I feel like people are treating Linus comments as if he had said "all AI is welcome, we are not even coding anymore" which is what I think most people fear but not what is happening with Linux

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

    I think that's because Linus subverted all expectations by those people, which comes at a shock. They were expecting Linus to be against Ai. Especially because in the past he was bashing and not taking Ai seriously. So he changed his mind, while the audience (who do not work on the Linux Kernel) stayed with the same opinion.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    Copyright has always been a complete arbitrary joke, just like nations' imaginary limits on terrain. We can live without those one day, they are just fundamental to bigger powers and their concentration of wealth. We, as layman or even peasants, should not care much.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Copyright is what Open Source makes work. The idea of Copyright itself is not bad and we have no better solution, only people crying about criticizing it. Also because one company cannot steal others work means, they have to come up with their own. Money is a good reason for people to do stuff and invent and work on it. This increases competition. What do you mean by "arbitrary"? If yo do any work, it is automatically protected under Copyright laws. And you can decide how you license it. There is no arbitrary about it.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (5 children)

    Look at kitchen recipes. They have no copyright. Chefs and restaurants still make money. That's what I meant to arbitrary, they are the pillars to a made up scenario, or paradigm. You are answering from within, unable to see the alternative because without copyright capitalism would collapse. That was my point when comparing to nation states. I know I am parroting crazy thoughts, but I believe they are useful for creative rebellion and imagining a world that might as well be possible and perhaps even better. Copyright and competitiveness are not real good drivers for innovation, they're just the rules of the game. Another game, rooted on cooperation may as well determine different rules for winning and the very definition of success could be another one in such a social system..

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  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Your recipes example is bad, because it is not an invention of creative act. I feel like people don't understand why Copyright even exist. The point is not that everything has to be Copyrightable. And those non related issues are not a reason for or against Copyright, because they are unrelated. Making money isn't even the only reason why Copyright exist.

    The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.

    - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

    If there was no Copyright, then everyone can steal from everyone else. Why would anyone try hard to come up with something, build it out and sell it. Just so others steal it for free and destroy your shop because they have more money to advertise? And this makes Software licenses such as Open Source impossible. Maybe they make changes to the software code after stealing yours and make it proprietary. That means Microsoft could steal all Open Source software, make changes to them and built them into Windows. Then people depend on the variant from Microsoft. This undermines Open Source and would definitely destroy any competition to Microsoft.

    There are many examples and reasons why Copyright is a good thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Are you British? Just kidding. But recipes do have a creative process. Chantilly cream was invented. Same as any other desserts or dishes. And parts of a recipe, like whipping cream, are reused throughout other recipes...

    I won't argue on the remainder of your post because I rather just keep it as different world views. You have decided to defend copyright. We just disagree.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    If recipes were copyrightable, then we couldn't sell anything on earth, because someone copyrighted it someday somewhere in the world. Recipes itself aren't creative work nor expressions of human thoughts, because everyone interprets (an expression) the recipe their way and is vastly different product. Writing a recipe is easy, there is no creativity needed either. I could write 1 million recipes and now they are mine and no one can use them if I don't allow? It does not depend which of the recipes make sense. See why this analogy does not hold up to other creative work which involves at least a little bit of creativity, such as characters or software code.

    I didn't just decide to defend copyright, I just list why its needed and what positive effects it has. You just dismiss all the good reasons to have Copyright. Just ignore those parts if you got defeated and can't argue anymore. So should I stop discussing with people who disagree with me too? I think you don't even understand Copyright, as your obsession with the recipe example demonstrates.

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