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Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.
This week: ChatGPT darling OpenAI wants people to write code in English, and the unintended consequences of blocking shared accounts.
1. GitHub Copilot to Stop Scraping Open Source Code?
First up this week: OpenAI is furiously hiring cheap overseas developers. It’s believed they’re being tasked with teaching Codex—the AI behind Copilot—how to code.
Analysis: Plan A might be illegal, so here’s Plan B
OpenAI won’t be able to use its existing model if it loses the court case accusing it of violating open source liceses. So it needs a fresh set of training data.
However, as old timers love to say, “Garbage in—garbage out.” And nowhere is that more true than in machine learning.
Reed Albergotti and Louise Matsakis: OpenAI has hired an army of contractors to make basic coding obsolete
“People with little to no coding experience”
The company behind … ChatGPT has ramped up its hiring around the world, bringing on roughly 1,000 remote contractors over the past six months in regions like Latin America and Eastern Europe, according to people familiar with the matter. … 40% are computer programmers who are creating data for OpenAI’s models to learn software engineering tasks.
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Previously, OpenAI trained its models on code scraped from GitHub. … But in this case, OpenAI appears to be building a dataset that includes not just lines of code, but also the human explanations behind them written in natural language. … A software developer in South America … who asked to remain anonymous [said] “They most likely want to feed this model with a very specific kind of training data, where the human provides a step-by-step layout of their thought-process.”
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With hundreds of programmers making a concerted effort to “teach” the models how to write basic code, [we] might be headed toward a new kind of software development as transformative … as heavy equipment was to the construction industry. … Silicon Valley executives envision products that allow creative people with little to no coding experience to build everything from web sites to video games simply by describing their visions to an AI algorithm.
That’s quite some vision. Jeremy Kahn, Michal Lev-Ram and Jessica Mathews: ChatGPT creates an AI frenzy
“$9 billion class action lawsuit”
When asked whether wishing for something could make it happen, WebGPT replied, “It is true that you can make a wish true by the power of thought.” [OpenAI has] tried to build expert chatbots that could help professionals in specific domains. But that effort ran into problems … because OpenAI lacked the right data to train expert bots.
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Stack Overflow … has already had to ban users from submitting answers crafted by ChatGPT, because the site was overwhelmed by answers that seemed plausible but were wrong. … Courts and regulators could also thrust a giant stick into the data flywheels on which generative A.I. depends. A $9 billion class action lawsuit [accuses] Microsoft and OpenAI of failing to credit or compensate coders for using their code to train GitHub’s coding assistant Copilot, in violation of open license terms.
Aye, there’s the rub. sirsinsalot points the finger:
I think the Github licensing fiasco has triggered this private training construction. … If they’re hiring contractors from Latin America and friends to provide training data … then every software engineer has a moral obligation to say no. They’d be potentially advancing the depreciation of their own role should the AI advance enough. … I like my job.
But will it make coding obsolete? CastrTroy replies in the negative:
No. 75% of my job as a programmer is to take requirements from customers and managers and turn them into something that actually makes sense.
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A product that allows you to automate tasks without code [might] make the programmer’s life easier, but it still doesn’t get rid of the need for programmers. Look at the average spreadsheet made by someone in management. Full of errors and inefficiencies. They can’t even communicate with other humans what they want. Good luck getting an AI to understand them.
As does feoren:
For the sake of argument, let’s say they succeed at this. They won’t, but let’s say they do.
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Instead of specifying the function of software precisely via programming languages developed over many decades of study, thought, and research, you get to specify the function of the software in English, the ****tiest programming language I could possibly imagine. … Good luck with that.
2. Netflix to Block Password Sharing Next Month
Netflix is “clarifying” that it doesn’t want you to share your account credentials with friends or family. Later this quarter, it intends to crack down on the practice by erecting several roadblocks.
Analysis: Beware unintended consequences
But what if those roadblocks cause so much friction that people simply cancel their subscription, rather than pay for two? That’s the paradoxical possibility people point to.
Martin Brinkmann: How Netflix wants to prevent account sharing
“Four-digit verification code”
Netflix explained in an updated account sharing FAQ how it plans to prevent account sharing in the future. … A device needs to be used to sign-in and watch Netflix content using the official Netflix apps or website while connected to the Wi-fi network at the primary location at least once every 31 days. … Customers who only use their devices may also face verification prompts if they did not sign-in with a device for the 31 day period.
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Information such as IP addresses, device IDs and account activity is used to “determine whether a device signed into your account is part” of an account’s primary location. … Customers could run into issues if they use specific devices only occasionally to watch content on Netflix.
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A link is sent to the account’s email address or phone number [of] the primary account owner. A click on the link opens a page with a four-digit verification code. The code is valid for 15 minutes and needs to be entered on the device with the verification prompt.
Let’s play “spot the corner cases,” shall we? Semaphor has one:
Well, I guess it’s good to know that I need not bother renewing a Netflix subscription for our vacation next month. Might as well not bother at all. Glad to see they are going the time honored route of making things worse for legitimate users while not bothering pirates.
And ZeroCool2u has another:
My Mom lives on the West Coast while we live on the East. She’s almost 70 and on a fixed income, so I pay for Netflix access for all of us.
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However, if they block her access I can’t see any reason to keep my 4K plan. I can get anything we want on a Plex server and give her whatever she wants to watch. … I was already on the fence with … Netflix, but this may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
At the end of their tether, it’s Randseed:
Fine, then. … The first time Netflix starts giving me **** about verifying my location … they’re gone.
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I travel an awful lot for work. A couple of years ago I spent over 200 nights in various hotels around the country. … They’re making the assumption that the only legitimate use of their system is going to be at a fixed location, which just isn’t true. … **** you, Reed Hastings.
The Moral of the Story:
Life is like riding a bicycle: To keep your balance, you must keep moving
—Albert Einstein
You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or [email protected].
Image: Martin Baron (via Unsplash; leveled and cropped)
