Personally I reject that. ML needs to be restricted heavily.

Sounds like an option instead of a need.

Forklifts are "agents of humans" but you still need a license to drive one.

It's pretty obvious to me at least that AI bros are using these tools recklessly and inappropriately, without regard for licensing or copyright, and therefore I am proposing that the tools need to be regulated.

Simple as that.

Unlike forum comments, GitHub code generally has an explicit license attached which you'd have to respect - you know, for instance by giving attribution to every MIT-licensed source that was used.

And even then, let's say someone releases a book with all your HN comments: you are definitely entitled to sue them for copyright. Here's some info from the BBS era, which is still relevant today: https://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

a similar ruling will also be a disaster for software as our tools of expression are very restricted. code is based on boolean algebra and predicate calculus, practice guides like design patterns and books teaching algorithms and data structures.

there are lots of ways to write bad code and only a few for good, correct code. Recognizing this led me to replicating known working code, code I had created, for multiple employers. so who's copyright did I intentionally violate?

I think we are attacking the wrong problem WRT ML and copyright. to me, ML shows the foundation on which copyright is built is a lie. we should use ML to break copyright for code.

For example, the "clean-room design" method of copying a work exists precisely to avoid potential copyright issues. One team reads the original work and writes a description in such a way that it cannot possibly be infringing, and a second team reads the description and creates the new work. This avoids any chance of someone reading the original work and incorporating potentially infringing aspects into the new work.