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GitHub Copilot

copilot.github.com

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Re: GitHub Copilot

#731

Post by delano »

breck wrote: post #609
natfriedman wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general: (1) training ML systems on public data is fair use (2) the output belongs to the operator, just like with a compiler. On the training question specifically, you can find OpenAI's position, as submitted to the USPTO here: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/OpenAI_R... We expect that IP and AI will be an interesting policy discussion around the world in the coming years, and we're eager to…

You should look into: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h... Great achievements like this only hammer home the point more about how illogical copyright and patent laws are. Ideas are always shared creations, by definition. If you have an “original idea”, all you really have is noise! If your idea means anything to anyone, then by definition it is built on other ideas, it is a shared creation.…

In practical terms, IP could be referred to as unique advantages. What is the purpose of an organization that has no unique qualities?

In general, what is IP and how it's enforced are two separate things. Just because we've used copyright and patents to "protect" an organization's unique advantages, doesn't mean we need to keep using them in the same way. Or maybe it's the best we can do for now. That's why BSD style licences are so great.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#732

Post by hobofan »

skateris wrote: post #714
hobofan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used any intelligent code completion in the past? E.g. I'd really be interested how it compares to TabNine[0], which already gives pretty amazing single line suggestions (haven't tried their experimental multi-line suggestions yet). [0]: https://www.tabnine.com

Interestingly the founder of TabNine (which was acquired by Codota[0]) is currently working at Open AI (edit: comments corrected me he left in December 2020 according to his blog). I imagine they're livid about Open AI creating a competing product. TabNine at times was magical, but I stopped using it after Codota started injecting ads directly into my editor[1] [0] https://betakit.com/waterloo-startup-tabnine-acquire…

Ah, thanks for the insight! It seems though that he is no longer working with OpenAI according to his personal website[0].

[0]: https://jacobjackson.com/about

Re: GitHub Copilot

#734

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

mdaniel wrote: post #522
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I put a section in my LICENSE.txt prohibiting use as training data in commercial models, would that be sufficient to keep my code out of models like this?

Only if they trained a model to be able to read and understand LICENSE.txt files -- wowzers what a monster improvement that would be for the world Or, I guess a sentinel phrase that the scraper could explicitly check: `github-copilot-optout: true`

Or it could explicitly check for known standard licenses that permit it, if it were opt in instead of opt out, the way most everything else in software licensing is opt-in for letting others use.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#735

Post by leotaku »

> If the technical preview is successful, our plan is to build a commercial version of GitHub Copilot in the future.

This may be the first time that a proprietary coding tool offers such a great value preposition that I am actually interested in trying it out and potentially even paying for it. It's also a bit concerning that this will probably be extremely hard, if not impossible, to create an FOSS version of this technology, just because of the immense amount of computing power, and by extension money, needed to create GPT3.

I'm not that comfortable with the idea of a future where proprietary AI-based solutions and libraries (e.g. automatic testing libraries, which have been mentioned here a few times) are so powerful that I'll be forced to use them if I don't want to waste my time.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#736

Post by koyote »

wpietri wrote: post #381

Does this solve the right problem? Getting some code on the page has rarely been the expensive part of building something. Indeed, some long-ago experience with code generators suggests that making it easy to create code makes many problems worse down the line.

I agree, I feel like it might be useful for whichever programmers regularly have to search Stackoverflow and then copy paste code snippets.

Then I feel like useful code produced by this tool will have to be treated in the exact same way as a rigorous code review: going through every part of the logic and ensuring it is correct. This seems like just as much or even more work than writing it yourself (if it is written in an unfamiliar way, you might need more time to wrap your head around it).

Re: GitHub Copilot

#737

Post by MathYouF »

leotaku wrote: post #735

> If the technical preview is successful, our plan is to build a commercial version of GitHub Copilot in the future. This may be the first time that a proprietary coding tool offers such a great value preposition that I am actually interested in trying it out and potentially even paying for it. It's also a bit concerning that this will probably be extremely hard, if not impossible, to create an FOSS version of this t…

Says the person who likely owns a washing machine, sink connected to plumbing, microwave, stove, lighters, clothes made with a sewing machine, ect. ect.

GPT-3 will take way less time to make a good substitute that costs the power of compute than other historical time saving technologies. Unlike other historic technologies, they pretty much spell out exactly how to do it, and own no patents related to its creation. I have trouble seeing the downside.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#738

Post by chimtim »

fzaninotto wrote: post #40

I've been using the alpha for the past 2 weeks, and I'm blown away. Copilot guesses the exact code I want to write about one in ten times, and the rest of the time it suggests something rather good, or completely off. But when it guesses right, it feels like it's reading my mind. It's really like pair programming, even though I'm coding alone. I have a better understanding of my own code, and I tend to give better na…

Unfortunately, one in 10 times is far from good enough (and this is with good prompt engineering which after using large language models for a while, one starts to do).

I feel like the current generation of AI is bringing us close enough to something that works once in a while but requires constant human expertise ~50% of the time. The self-driving industry is in a similar situation of despair where millions have been spent in labelling and training but something fundamental is amiss in the ML models.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#739

Post by z3t4 »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #454
inimino wrote: post #385

I'm amazed to see how positive the overall response is to this idea. Almost as if programmers think that writing programs is the worst part of the job and ready to be automated away. As someone more aligned with the Dijkstra perspective, this seems to me like one of the single worst ideas I've ever seen in this domain. We already have IDEs and other tools leading to an increase in boilerplate and the acceptance of it…

I mean you say this, but you and most likely the majority of programmers rely on dozens of repositories, packages and libraries with likely zero deep understanding of it (and at the very least haven't read the source code of ) so I don't really understand the difference here. The advantage of something like this is that instead of having to go to stack overflow or any number of reference sites and copy pasta it can j…

One problem with IDE's is that they can be antagonistic of good practices such as writing comprehensible code, small code bases, and good documentation.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#740

Post by karmasimida »

inimino wrote: post #385

I'm amazed to see how positive the overall response is to this idea. Almost as if programmers think that writing programs is the worst part of the job and ready to be automated away. As someone more aligned with the Dijkstra perspective, this seems to me like one of the single worst ideas I've ever seen in this domain. We already have IDEs and other tools leading to an increase in boilerplate and the acceptance of it…

> Someone will produce 5000 lines of code in a day for a new feature, but only read 2000 of those lines.

Shouldn't the one who has produced this code be responsible for making sure the integrity of it? 5k LOC in a day without test cases, then that is no code, it is a disaster.

I think the marketing here is about right. This is no AI programmer, but Copilot. It is an intelligent assistant that does some mundane things for you with probability of failing some of that even, but when the stars align, you are in luck.

I see this as INCREDIBLY useful for certain niche of programming:

1. Front end. Some components are really trivial but still requires some manual rewiring and stuff, this could be the life saver.

2. Templates for devops. Those are as soul crushing as possible, and I couldn't think of a better domain to apply Copilot to it.

Overall, this is a huge win for programmer productivity, with reasonable compromises.

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