They’re clearly producing derivative works.
But this can't be right, it is inconsistent with how copyright has worked so far. Artists and musicians and engineers all learn from each other and have seen and learned from, "trained on" many other examples of works from their field. Even when works are clearly inspired by other works we tend not to give them the legal status of derivative work.
You're suggesting we treat models with a much stricter copyright regime than has previously existed.
If we get to the point that capitalist maximalist-utilitarianism insists upon hijacking the very concept of what a living organism is, I can only compare it to a teddy bear vs an actual bear.
It’s not enough to merely put fur on it and an internal rom for it to regurgitate prefabricated roars upon contextual prodding.
Respect the life you are only one instance of, for hubris has always brought suffering and pain in its wake.
You have a mechanism that can regurgitate (digest, remix, emit) without attribution all of the world's code and all of the world's art.
With these systems, you're giving everyone the ability to plagiarize everything, effortlessly and unknowingly. No skill, no effort, no time required. No awareness of the sources of the derivative work.
My work is now your work. Everyone can "write" my code, without ever knowing I wrote it, without ever knowing I existed. Everyone can use my hard work, regurgitated anonymously, stripped of all credit, stripped of all attribution, stripped of all identity and ancestry and citation.
It's a new kind of use not known (or imagined?) when the copyright laws were written.
Training must be opt in, not opt out.
Every artist, every creative individual, must EXPLICITLY OPT IN to having their hard work regurgitated anonymously by Copilot or Dall-E or whatever.
If you want to donate your code or your painting or your music so it can easily be "written" or "painted", in whole or in part, by everyone else, without attribution, then go ahead and opt in.
But if an author or artist does not EXPLICITLY OPT IN, you can't use their creative work to train these systems.
All these code/art washing systems, that absorb and mix and regurgitate the hard work of creative people must be strictly opt in.
That's how the law needs to be.
This would prevent anybody from accidentally infringing when using these tools. Does that seem like a reasonable solution, or is your concern greater than accidental infringement?
A world without copyright would however save more than just a few millions of man hours that copilot might do. Allowing people and companies to freely use the best software available, view the best art, enjoy the most relaxing music, have the best recreational time with the best films. The only harm is the highly speculative claim that people won't be creating the best software, the best art, the best music or the best films.