Isn't the data that flows through Github so valuable that they (Microsoft) are happy to eat the cost?
I don't have a clear idea how that value can be captured, since it's going to be 90% AI generated code that anyone can scrape (public projects) or can't be used (private projects), so perhaps you're right.
> Isn't the data they capture so valuable that they (Microsoft) are happy to eat the cost?
Even if that is true, unless the value of the data corresponds to near-term revenue, then eventually the cost may simply not be possible to meet. Or for that matter, the capital to manage the increasing load may simply not exist - it does not matter how much valuable data you have, if the supply of hardware cannot keep up with your demand.
Also, I suspect that most of the "data" obtained by the incessant hammering on GitHub is not very valuable. Most business code is routine, and getting Copilot to help out with generating enormous amounts of it may not contribute much in return.
And it isn't even clear yet if the AI generated code is even particularly valuable since it's legally ambiguous as to whether or not any human ownership can be attributed to it.
The USPTO has declined copyrightability for genai artwork, it's only a matter of time before the same question comes up about code.
Your claim is incorrect. Something purely AI generated may not be covered by copyright in the US. That would make it more valuable to MS as you can reuse it as you like.
However, works with significant human input are covered by copyright, and most code does have such input. Human review, and correction is very common. There is a lot of AI generated code out there, and there are no cases challenging the copyright on it.
You also need to look beyond US law. Software is a global business and most software businesses do not want to write software they can only sell in certain countries.
> However, works with significant human input are covered by copyright, and most code does have such input. Human review, and correction is very common. There is a lot of AI generated code out there, and there are no cases challenging the copyright on it.
Legislation and court decisions still pending. There are numerous lawsuits about copyrigtability of output, and right of use of copyrighted work by LLMs, and both could have ramifications for code. I don't see how it's materially different to tell Claude Code to write you a function fetching an entry from a database, and telling ChatGPT to generate you a picture of a unicorn riding a bicycle. Both have the same level of input (desired end goal), both might go through review and updates (no, pink unicorn; no, cache the database connection).
Legal challenges over code copyright are relatively rare nowadays, so I wouldn't take lack of high profile lawsuits as proof of legality / copyrightability.
And yes, this will also depend on jurisdiction. Court decisions or laws can change that. Litigation over copyright infringement via training and reproduction is ongoing in multiple jurisdiction, and it wouldn't be shocking to me if at least some decide that it is indeed copyright infringement to pirate content to train LLMs that can reproduce it.
If I write a program of 1000 lines of code, with AI features turned off, then I turned the AI features on and use a completion to edit one function, can my program not be copyrighted?
(I expect/hope you’ll say: “Of course it’s still eligible for copyright”)
How about if I write 100 lines myself, turn the AI features on, vibe code 100 lines, and repeat this for five cycles? Half the functions are AI coded and half the functions I wrote myself.
How about if I just tell Claude to write the program?
And what if I tell Claude to write the program, and then spend six months tweaking most of the lines of code?
I struggle to see a specific and obvious point where a line should be drawn. It seems intuitive to me that if I spend at least a few days worth of effort on a code base (whether tweaking, correcting, or directing AI to do targeted refactors), that is meaningful human authorship even if it has thousands of lines of generated code.
I can, however, acknowledge the fairness that something which is simply one-shot output probably shouldn’t merit protection.
But really, in any of these cases, it’s going to be pretty hard to prove after the fact exactly what the proportion of generated code to human authorship is, so idk how a court will really tell whether a repo with 20,000 LOC is one-shot or actually had a person spend a few weeks tweaking it.
Why should this be any different than when telling/paying a human to write the program?
You're free to enter an agreement assigning all rights to the employer or the worker, to license the work ir/revokably and/or non/transferably. There is no need to wait for a court decision to understand what the results will be.
If that function is all you ask it to write as a one off, maybe. However, if that function is part of a larger system that is human designed it is very different. If you review and correct the code in the system it is very different.
> I don't have a clear idea how that value can be captured, since it's going to be 90% AI generated code that anyone can scrape (public projects) or can't be used (private projects), so perhaps you're right.
The value is probably in knowing which AI-generated code ends up being pushed or discarded, which can't be derived from public projects. This information can then be used to finetune the next big model so it only generates the "good" code.
In the Netherlands, there's a single ID you use for all official government services. It's essentially username/password with MFA, issued by the government. What is neat is you can scan your passports NFC chip with your smartphone as a means to verify your identity through this system.
Not sure how it solves any of the data breach issues, though.
Agreed. It’s cited so often on Reddit by people who want to establish their superiority over the masses. “It’s a documentary!!” is a meme unto itself.
It’s also got a kind of weird eugenics-y vibe to it (like establishing “stupid people breeding makes stupid people” as incontrovertible fact) when you step back and examine it as a movie that’s making Serious Statements. But it isn’t. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s a comedy, the satirical elements are heavily over exaggerated by fans.
It's kind of funny when you say the movie isn't making serious statements when the highest of our publicly elected officials isn't a serious person. We elect people that are actively harmful to our well being. These people say things so incredibly stupid it can be painful. And then you wonder why people look at the movie like it's a documentary?
He might not present as a serious person but he is. The nativist impulses, the gutter racism, the “F you I’ve got mine” attitude, the party establishment that enabled him despite all that… these are all serious things worth serious analysis.
“Stupid people vote for stupid guy” is exactly the kind of analysis I’m critical of Idiocracy for.
I think you may misunderstand what the term "not a serious person" means. Just because someone is an ego driven performer doesn't mean their actions don't have consequences, it means you've fucked up if you follow them and take them for face value.
There has been a ton of analysis for why said stupid people vote for stupid people, but very little of it can prevent said behaviors.
Just to be clear, the smartest person is still a minister in Idiocracy, and the whole premise hinges on the idea that the elite still recognizes intelligence as something desirable.
It's not a eugenics-y vibe. The inciting incident is dysgenics, and the in-narrative apocalypse would have been prevented by eugenics.
It doesn't preclude the movie from being enjoyed or appreciated. The movie also came out at a time when test scores, literacy rates, and whatnot were all _increasing_, so that was the more salient lens to criticize it by.
That trend has reversed now, though. I don't agree with the dysgenic narrative, but I have often found myself thinking, "Gotta hand it to the movie Idiocracy, it's feeling familiar".
For all its flaws, I was a child at the time saturated in post-Y2K optimism that tomorrow would always be better than the day before. It was one of the first things that made me seriously consider, "What if humanity is not on a linear path of improvement"?
Given the number of people in this thread saying “it’s a documentary” I don’t think there’s a significant difference. And there’s also plenty of criticism of Idiocracy on Reddit too.
I never understood that eugenics criticism of the movie. They make zero references to genetics in that opening sequence, and the nurture side of that argument is readily trotted out as a truism even here on HN: "people from affluent parents have easier access to education".
The introduction describes it as a "turning point in human evolution", and that "natural selection ... began to favor different traits". These are some of the very first sentences of the movie.
The thesis is given: "Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species". The characters dramatizing the inciting incident in the introduction are introduced with their IQs. It's very explicitly a dysgenic apocalypse narrative, which could have been avoided with earlier eugenicist intervention. (They attempt "genetic engineering" later on, but they fail, as the unintelligent are able to win by sheer numbers.)
It's okay to like the movie, and it is fiction. But it's certainly a dysgenic narrative which has eugenicist implications.
That's not a eugenics argument, that's merely an evolutionary argument (identifying a change in selection pressure). The eugenics argument would first have to make the case that the people are stupid/intelligent because of their genetic lineage rather than their upbringing.
This is one of those threads that's making me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Like, I don't think enjoying Idiocracy makes someone a bad person or anything like that, but it's pretty clearly making a eugenics argument without any mitigating counter-hypothesis.
It's particularly amusing because there are people quoting Neal Stephenson in this thread, ignoring the fact that when Stephenson tackles similar subject matter, he's very careful to make it clear that he's talking more about the cultural axioms which have a long-term effect on how people value learning and intellectualism. It's not even subtext, I've been reading The Diamond Age recently and very early on there's a line where a character clearly states that there's no coherent genetic theory of human intelligence, and the entire thesis of the book runs counter to that notion that intelligence is primarily genetic.
I hadn't seen it since it came out, but had a that kind of general movie recollection that it was as funny as it was prescient. Watched it again with my wife who had not seen it before: it's not funny. Maybe I'm getting too old.
> like establishing “stupid people breeding makes stupid people” as incontrovertible fact
That’s based on environment and not on genes. You might not be born “stupid”, but if you’re surrounded by retards (like in the movie), chances are you won’t be splitting atoms.
It definitely activates something within people. Maybe I'm just terminally online, but there is always _always_ someone who will say "Idiocracy isn't satire, its a documentary."
I don’t think that when people say “it’s a documentary” they mean that it’s literally a “documentary”, more like “this satire is so close to reality, that you can call it documentary”.
Not just 'other girls'. That happens, but also, it's a theme that has been around a long time. The 'Maga' movement existed before Trump. This is 1992
Was also in Snow Crash.
"All these beefy Caucasians with guns! Get enough of them together, looking for the America they always believed they'd grow up in, and they glom together like overcooked rice…With their power tools, portable generators, weapons, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and personal computers, they are like beavers hyped up on crystal meth, manic engineers without a blueprint, chewing through the wilderness, building things and abandoning them, altering the flow of mighty rivers and then moving on because the place ain't what it used to be.
The byproduct of the lifestyle is polluted rivers, greenhouse effect, spouse abuse, televangelists, and serial killers.
But as long as you have that fourwheel-drive vehicle and can keep driving north, you can sustain it, keep moving just quickly enough to stay one step ahead of your own waste stream.
"
Snow Crash
Chapter 39 (Hiro's observation as he drives along the Alaska Highway)
What I find interesting is how AI enthusiasts will recursively offer AI itself as the solution to any of the issues you mention.
Since AI can read and generate code, it can surely fix code, or find bugs, or address security flaws. And if this all turns into a hot mess, AI can just refactor the whole thing anyway. And so forth.
Personally, I think we'll be some years off before the whole software loop is closed by AI (if it even happens anyway).
To be clear, the framework I built is independent of the MonoGame framework. As for how it was built, it's relatively straightforward. There are three layers: platform layer, framework layer, and the game layer. On the platform layer, I started by implementing a basic hello world-tier game loop using Win32 window/messaging APIs, OpenGL for graphics rendering, and OpenAL for audio playback. Then I wrote tidy wrapper layer functions for calling into the platform layer, with better ergonomics/readability, which the game layer calls. Then, I began adding WASM APIs at the platform layer, with branching #if statements in the framework layer that control whether src\platform\win32 or src\platform\wasm functions are called based on build target. In this way, the game code remained unchanged but support for web was seamlessly added (with some pain in adjusting the wrapper APIs to handle the large differences in Win32 and web APIs). Then repeated this process for each additional platform. The primary csproj is set up to branch into different csprojs per build target, with one using the Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WebAssembly project SDK, etc. Over time, I expanded features of the platform layer and wrapper layer as they were needed.
For the game I had already made progress on when trying MonoGame, I had already written a wrapper layer over the MonoGame APIs even before I had started on my own framework. My new framework wrapper layer was designed as similarly as possible, so transitioning my game code to the new framework was mostly painless, and only required adjusting the shape of some rendering/audio/input calls here and there.
I’m not the commenter that you asked, but I have also built a cross platform game framework with backends for SDLGPU and WebGL. The answer to your question is pretty basic. AI did it for me.
I asked it to create a canvas-like API, noting that it should create platform independent code. The canvas API populates arrays for vertices, indices, and other relevant things relating to draw batches. My game is built on top of this platform independent canvas code, and is itself platform independent.
Then you have the platform code, which simply reads the memory of those arrays and does what it needs to do to draw it in its environment. I have barely looked at the platform code but it seems to just work, and it is really performant. It around 1000 lines of code for the web target. The key is to use shared memory as the bridge between the compiled WASM code and the platform code for draw calls. As I said, it’s mostly just arrays of vertices, texture ids, and indices.
It took me some thinking on how to define textures in a platform independent way, but it all ended up working well. I bounced some ideas with the AI to come up with a solution just using ids.
From there I just kept adding more features, FMOD support, shaders, etc.
Edit: Oops, I misread that your comment was referring specifically to getting Monogame on web. I thought I’d leave it here anyway though because it might help you. The key insight for me was that the canvas API (and Monogame as well) is just batching up vertices, indices, into draw calls, before the platform specific stuff happens. I realised this after investigating how the Spine animation software was able to achieve so much cross platform support (it’s just providing triangles with texture ids to platform code). You don’t need any concept of a platform to represent the entirety of your games as triangles associated with texture ids in memory.
I also want to throw MonoGame into the mix here. Since its purely C#, Claude Code works great for it. It does mean you dont have the visual engine tools you get with Godot, but you could even get Claude to build these for your game.
Im personally finding it a lot of fun to work this way.
I read that as MomoGame at first and was very confused.
I'll have to give MonoGame another try. I was a big fan of XNA up until its deprecation. I went all in on OpenTK for a while, and in hindsight MonoGame would've been the better choice.
I don't have a clear idea how that value can be captured, since it's going to be 90% AI generated code that anyone can scrape (public projects) or can't be used (private projects), so perhaps you're right.
reply