I wasn't really trying to address whether the argument is valid, I was just noting the representation of the other side here is reductive to the point of being in bad faith. I find that kind of rhetoric a little frustrating since it's kind of inflammatory, and, I believe, not particularly productive towards having honest/informative disagreements and discussion.

I think if another algorithm was used instead of ML that did the same job as Copilot, then people would be making the same arguments. I think it's just the case that ML is just the first tech capable of doing what Copilot is doing.

You can't copyright an algorithm, you can copyright a particular expression of one, or you can attempt to patent an algorithm, but two authors can legitimately write the same thing and not infringe on each others copyright unless one copied from the other.

Suppose you own the rights to a jpeg. And I apply a simple algorithm that increments every hex value. So 00 becomes 01 and so on. The gibberish images it spits out would be so different then your original image that you wouldn't have any claim to them at all.

Because other algorithms don't work this way, and aren't as transformative.

Is your claim that no algorithm can be transformative?