I wrote that part from memory and meant the current state-of-the-art architecture, which most of the models are based on now, instead of the whole field. It is actually a bit older than that. AI as academic discipline was established in 1956, so it is about 70 years old. Though you would not consider much of it useful relating to independently making discoveries. I should have read up on it beforehand. Sorry for that and thanks for pointing out.

Yes, I meant the current state-of-the-art architecture by the term “AI” and partly the boom thereafter. The field “AI” is obviously much older. Sorry for that and thanks for pointing it out.

Yes it does not work right!

I agree.

also there are no new discoveries made by AI, we only see chat bots, self driving cars, automation in workplace, yet no discoveries. At some point I thought AI will help us solve cancer or way to travel in space, yet billionaires think of money.

We aren’t there yet. AI and research around it started, or rather really took off, around 2018 (at least relating to what we mean by AI today; ruled based approaches existed much longer). It is very much a new field, considering most other fields existed for over 30 years at this point. Transformers, the current architecture of most models and what we consider when we speak of “AI”, started with a paper in 2017. It is very much new ground, considering the fundamentals behind it are much older. And well, to be pedantic, large language models aren’t really AI because there is no intelligence. They are just generating output that is the most probable continuation of the input and context provided. So yeah, “AI” cannot really research or make new discoveries yet. There may very well be a time, where AI helps us solve cancer. It definitely isn’t today nor tomorrow.

I also don’t think that billionaries make money with AI. I mean, if you look at OpenAI: they are actually burning money, at a fast rate measured in billions. They are believed to turn a profit in 2030. Without others investing in it, they would be long gone already. The people with money believe that OpenAI and other companies related to AI will someday make the world changing discovery. That could very well lead to AI making discoveries on its own AND to lots of money. Until then, they are obviously willing to burn a tremendous amount of money and that is keeping OpenAI in particular alive at this moment. Only time will tell what happens next. I keep my popcorn ready, once the bubble bursts :D

Edit: Connected AI making discoveries to lots of money gained or rather saved. That is the sole reason for investments from people with big money.
Edit 2: Clarified what I meant exactly by AI. Thanks everyone for pointing it out.

Good Sire, if we are talking about only the US, then that does not matter at all. Existing copyright law and established precedents (without involving AI) already covers this. The copyright of software is handled like that of literature, so the actual content is copyrighted. More specifically the sequence of words. In order to violate the copyright of a protected work, one just has to reproduce this sequence. It is not relevant, if it was reproduced by an AI, a human, God or your cat (:D). The only exclusion to this is fair use. Whether fair use applies must be considered by a case by case basis. There are four factors that are used in deciding whether it falls under fair use. And that is considering that portions of that code are not patented. If they are, then you are screwed no matter what (unless you are allowed to use that code).

Anyhow, you are opening yourself up for litigations for sure.

Now, is this a problem? Probably not. Copyright infringement is actually very very hard to spot, especially without automated tools (looking right at you, YouTube). Even if it is spotted, the owners of the copyright must use resources in order to enforce it. Considering that most of the code used in the training data is open-source, most of these owners won’t have these resources or at least aren’t using them (which is sad, because that also applies to the infringement of companies as well). You cannot lose, if no one sues. Whether you should risk it, is anyone’s decision to make.

For unprotected code… I guess, you are right. It could be one way or the other, but it does not really matter that much. At worst, people can use your code without adhering to your license. That would not mark the end of an project, the former definitely would.

Also on another note: Using copyrighted material in the training data of AI is considered fair use.