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Comment by igniuss | Hacker News Reader

a human can still be held accountable though, github copilot running amock less so

If you pay for Copilot Business/Enterprise, they actually offer IP indemnification and support in court, if needed, which is more accountability than you would get from human contributors.

https://resources.github.com/learn/pathways/copilot/essentia...

I think that they felt the need to offer such a service says everything, basically admitting that LLMs just plagiarize and violate licenses.

That covers any random contribution claiming to be AI?

Their docs say:

> If any suggestion made by GitHub Copilot is challenged as infringing on third-party intellectual property (IP) rights, our contractual terms are designed to shield you.

I'm not actually aware of a situation where this was needed, but I assume that MS might have some tools to check whether a given suggestion was, or is likely to have been, generated by Copilot, rather than some other AI.

9 lines of code came close to costing Google $8.8 billion

how much use do you think these indemnification clauses will be if training ends up being ruled as not fair-use?

Are you concerned that this will bankrupt Microsoft?

be nice, wouldn't it?

poetic justice for a company founded on the idea of not stealing software

I think they're afraid they will have to sue Microsoft to get them to abide by the promise to come to their defense in another suit.

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