Ask HN: If LLM reverse engineering is deemed illegal, is that precedent for OSS?

With the efforts to clamp down on LLM-assisted reverse engineering - I am wondering;

If LLM assisted reverse engineering is deemed illegal by the courts, is that precedent for a class action that asserts OSS licenses are violated by labs that trained LLMs on that code?

There are two modalities for this;

1) LLM being post-trained against a decompiled binary - then used to output working source code.

2) LLM being used to analyze decompiled binary and used to output working source code.

How can it be "clean room" when an LLM is trained on or reads OSS but not clean room when the same is done for decompiled software?

4 points | by apatheticonion 15 hours ago

3 comments

xlayn 13 hours ago
LLMs doesn't know anything about the codebase where they are going to work, they have to reverse engineer from reading the code the "knowledge" of the worker, so any work done by LLM is reverse engineering and illegal?
turtleyacht 14 hours ago
LLMs are not human, so they can't violate licenses. Licenses are for humans to adhere to (or not).
However, the intent to reverse engineer without source--only public API and analysis of data streams--for commercial use almost certainly violates OSS, since it's to evade strictures.
Private use like retrocomputing, "right to repair," should support the individual.
Basically, if LLM's output is relicensed for different intent, courts should see through that.
[-]
- chistev 9 hours ago
  That doesn't make sense to me, seeing as the LLMs are used by humans to violate licenses.
  [-]
  - turtleyacht 5 hours ago
    The whole thing or the last sentence? Would have revised the last to be
```
  Basically, if LLM's output is relicensed for
  different intent, courts should realize that.
```
verdverm 14 hours ago
why do you think it will be made illegal?
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- apatheticonion 14 hours ago
  Because, without AI, the approaches taken would be illegal. Large companies are now being affected so there is money invested in protecting their trade secrets.
  Can an LLM be "clean room"? Are weights trained on decompiled code considered "tainted"?
  [-]
  - verdverm 13 hours ago
    Where is it illegal? I know of many examples where people are running companies doing this across a variety of domains. (not software, no ai)
    Trade secrets have no legal protection
    [-]
    - apatheticonion 13 hours ago
      It's a fair question. Are you familiar with clean room concepts and why they are required to circumvent the legal hurdles associated with reverse engineering projects?
      [-]
      - verdverm 13 hours ago
        Where are you getting this legal hurdle stuff from? People have been doing this since forever
        Sandy Monroe is a great current example, tears down cars and builds reports. The auto industry has distillation built in