Re: GCC AI Policy Announcement

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"Teylu, Andrew via Gcc" <[email protected]> writes:

>> >> What happens if a patch contains a non-trival amount of code that
>> >> cannot be copyrighted because it was assisted by AI?
>> > The open questions around this are why the GNU project issued
>> > provisional guidance to reject significant contributions developed with
>> > an LLM.
>> >
>> > If it is copyrightable, then who owns the copyright? If it's based on
>> > the training data, then the contributor may not have the rights to
>> > share such a patch, and it cannot be legally redistributed under the G=
PL
>> > (or any licence).
>>
>> That is one of the clearer points right now - LLM-generated code cannot
>> be copyrighted.
>>
>> If somebody significantly modifies LLM-generated code, then that person
>> gains copyright (which would also be fine).
>>
>> And if anybody ever finds that training data fed to an LLM lead to
>> copyright on the generated code... this would be such a huge upset
>> of the software and other industries that anything about GNU software
>> and gcc would pale by comparison, by so many orders of magnitude
>> that it would be ridiculous.
>>
>> It seems that the risk assessment leading to the current policy is
>> at variance with what everybody else's risk assessment, and frankly,
>> I do not think that this is justified.
>>
>
> As just one other voice: I agree with Thomas here.
>
>> And this policy, if it is held up over a long period of time,
>> has the potential of significantly holding back gcc's development,
>> both in absolute terms and in relation to its competitors, for
>> example LLVM.
>>
>> I have an e-mail in my inbox with some details of a very worthwhile
>> project, where gfortran lags behind other compilers by large factors
>> in speed. There is a LLM-generated prototype which would run
>> afoul of the current rules, so it seems that avenue is currently
>> closed. Oh well, then gfortran will continue to lag behind other
>> compilers.
>>
>> To put it bluntly: The current policy is based on a risk assessment
>> that nobody shares, and risks losing significant development speed
>> over the competition.
>>
>
> I have visions of the EGCS fork, where someone forks the current gcc, acc=
epts
> any and all LLM-generated patches, this then beats/supersedes the =E2=80=
=9Creal=E2=80=9D gcc,
> and then everyone starts to move to this other fork, creating an absolute=
 mess
> of the ecosystem.

They're free to do so.

>
>> Best regards
>>
>>         Thomas

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