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Comment by ilovecaching | Hacker News Reader

Just want to say that I'm not going to touch any AI tools until the legalities are ironed out, and I absolutely won't be using it at work without very clear approval. AI poses a huge risk to businesses as programmers start feeding code into other companies backends without thinking and pulling out random snippets from projects with varying licenses.

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Ignoring AI tools is very shortsighted IMO

Beyond shortsighted.

What's beyond shortsighted? What would you call that?

Being cautious in order to keep one's IP and job safe during an economic downturn isn't shortsighted, it's playing the long game. AI isn't going anywhere, and waiting and seeing how the legalities shake out and how companies will want to consume this internally is the smart play.

Jumping onto a new technology with unknown risks and getting burned is shortsighted.

The "long game" becomes short if your organisation is out-executed by a competitor who isn't as conservative in approach.

Then I get home and think: how come we're collectively killing the biome that sustains us and degrading its ability to nurture human civilization? Then I remember I need to race to the bottom with everyone else to get that cash son!

It's the reality of the marketplace. I'd like to change it too.

You'd like to or you're going to?

I'm not sure what company you're working for where generating code that may or may not be correct and needs careful analysis is somehow increasing your coding velocity to the point where it's trumping higher level thinking or protecting your IP or not getting into expensive lawsuits. I would like to hear more.

It's not about generating code which may or may not be correct. It's about being free to use a new wave of tools which allows engineers to try many approaches and analyse results at warp speed. The engineers (and organisations) which can capture this velocity will have a huge advantage over those who do not.

I understand that it would be nice for the industry to behave within the law when it comes to IP and copyright. But historically, that isn't the case. Google v Oracle re: Java. Zenimax V Occulus. Samsung v Apple. Microsoft v Motorola. Companies will happily look the other way when it comes to IP if it means capturing more of the market.

Why do you care? You use the tools and get a competitive edge. Get rich, if you're right!

I feel like there's a big lack of understanding of how the world works here.

He's just saying he won't share the codebase owned by the company he works for on a 3rd party platform without explicit approval from whomever owns it, and he won't just willy-nilly copy-paste snippets from the AI onto said codebase without properly vetting them.

He didn't say anything about ignoring AI. Pretty reasonable if you ask me.

You are spot on with the work comment. Posting IP you do not own to a service you may not be permitted to use is a bad idea.

Wise decision as far as I'm concerned. Unfettered AI experiments on production systems are an IP and (depending on your field) regulatory nightmare waiting to happen. Unless you have lawyer-vetted guidelines and oversight, use OpenAI products exclusively for experiments and personal projects.

If you've reduced your code base to vector weights and that's all you send to an api, I wonder how much you'd mitigate this concern?

So AI products can only be developed in AI friendly legal areas? Similar to cloning and stem cell research?

s/developed/used/ I think is more the comment.

OrgA will be 'all in' with the convenience of Copilot; OrgB will flee due to legality/litigious concerns.

I never said anything about AI development.

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