This is a hell of a Pandora’s box that’s being cracked open here.
Interesting times ahead. For example, if you believe these kinds of tools will become a huge competitive advantage, and that the inclusion of GPL code is a meaningful force multiplier, it kind of implies the fusion of AI code generation and the GPL will eat the world.
Only if people understand that the result is under GPL; if they don't, then this is a mechanism to slowly "launder" the work people put into GPL code to funnel into non-GPL codebases.
It depends on which "people" you're referring to. I suspect the degree to which the programmer knows this is of little relevance to the question of how the legal + risk management implications will play out.
I mean general people people, not only developers: people includes managers and lawyers and politicians and everyone who might cause you to have GPL Copilot separate from MIT Copilot... the same people who right now cause licenses to matter, despite many developers not understanding anything about copyright law and just thinking "I'll steal that other developer's work as it makes my life easier".
If anything, I think the real test of this tech is going to be audio, as it has the right overlap of "big copyright is going to get pissed", "there already exist tools that attempt to automatically detect even small bits of infringement", "people actually litigate even small bits of infringement", and "it feels feasible in the near future": you whistle a tune, and the result is a fully produced backing track that sometimes happens to exactly sound like the band backing Taylor Swift on a recognizable song and generates Taylor Swift's voice, almost verbatim, singing some of her lyrics to go along with it.
Why is human understanding going to prevent this? Doesn't it seem like this is precisely the de facto function of Copilot: a license laundering machine?
If humans understand this then presumably lawyers would start hunting for code replication caused by Copilot--using automated mechanisms similar to those used by professors at Universities to catch people cheating--and do the moral equivalent of ambulance chasing: offering to file all the paperwork on spec for a cut of an assured payout. But if people in general believe this to be fair use somehow, then GPL is essentially dead (I have been a big advocate for it over the years, and if people are doing this--and everyone thinks it is OK--then it loses the entire point as far as I am concerned).
Interesting times ahead. For example, if you believe these kinds of tools will become a huge competitive advantage, and that the inclusion of GPL code is a meaningful force multiplier, it kind of implies the fusion of AI code generation and the GPL will eat the world.