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GitHub Copilot

copilot.github.com

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Re: GitHub Copilot

#771

Post by zootboy »

asadlionpk wrote: post #428
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…

If this results in more overall programmers or enabling existing programmers to make products quicker than before, it's a win! Most codebases already majorly contain unread code; the libraries (node_modules, etc). I am sure we can figure out a pattern to separate human vs machine code in similar way. If the code you are about to write is already written by someone else on the internet, that's probably not the most in…

> If this results in more overall programmers or enabling existing programmers to make products quicker than before, it's a win!

I don't think I really agree with this sentiment. "More programmers" or "faster programmers" is meaningless (or even actively detrimental) if the quality of their output is lower. It's even worse if their output is plagued by subtle bugs, as AI systems are likely to produce.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#772

Post by [deleted] »

natfriedman wrote: post #345
stefanos82 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of questions: - the generated code by AI belongs to me or GitHub? - under what license the generated code falls under? - if generated code becomes the reason for infringment, who gets the blame or legal action? - how can anyone prove the code was actually generated by Copilot and not the project owner? - if a project member does not agree with the usage of Copilot, what should we do as a team? - can Copilot copy…

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…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copilot

#773

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

jgworks wrote: post #699
billti wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The landing page for it states the below, so hopefully not too much of an issue (though I guess some folks may find a 0.1% risk high). > GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it suggests is uniquely generated and has never been seen before. We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set.

I'd be surprised if a company's legal department would be OK with that 0.1% risk.

Like wouldn’t be entertaining without the License Nazis. No code for you! (Seinfeld reference)

Re: GitHub Copilot

#775

Post by smackjer »

varispeed wrote: post #746
billti wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The landing page for it states the below, so hopefully not too much of an issue (though I guess some folks may find a 0.1% risk high). > GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it suggests is uniquely generated and has never been seen before. We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set.

Did they have a license to use public source code as a data source for data set though?

Yes, it's public source code.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#776

Post by bogwog »

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.…

> 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.

Copyright doesn't protect "ideas" it protects "works". If an artist spends a decade of his life painting a masterpiece, and then some asshole sells it on printed T-shirts, then copyright law protects the artist.

Likewise, an engineer who writes code should not have to worry about some asshole (or some for-profit AI) copy and pasting it into other peoples' projects. No copyright protections for code will just disincentivize open source.

Software patents are completely bullshit though, because they monopolize ideas which 99.999% of the time are derived from the ideas other people freely contributed to society (aka "standing on the shoulders of giants"). Those have to go, and I do not feel bad at all about labeling all patent-holders greedy assholes.

But copyright is fine and very important. Nothing is perfect, but it does work very well.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#778

Post by hyperpallium2 »

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…

The point of APIs and libraries is abstraction: you can understand and use without the details.

(Now... you may argue that apis are often badly designed and implemented... but at least they are trying).

Re: GitHub Copilot

#779

Post by rictic »

billti wrote: post #688
iandanforth wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the licensing for code generated in this way? GPT-3 has memorized hundreds of texts verbatim and can be prompted to regurgitate that text. Has this model only been trained on code that doesn't require attribution as part of the license?

The landing page for it states the below, so hopefully not too much of an issue (though I guess some folks may find a 0.1% risk high). > GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it suggests is uniquely generated and has never been seen before. We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set.

If you pulled a marble out of a bag ten times a day, with a 0.1% chance each time that it was red: after a day you'd have a 1% chance of seeing a red marble, the first week you'd have a 6.7% chance, the first month you'd have a 26% chance, and the first working year you'd have a 92.6% chance of having seen at least one red marble.

Probabilities are fun!

Re: GitHub Copilot

#780

Post by shanebrunette »

natfriedman wrote: post #60

Hi HN, we've been building GitHub Copilot together with the incredibly talented team at OpenAI for the last year, and we're so excited to be able to show it off today. Hundreds of developers are using it every day internally, and the most common reaction has been the head exploding emoji. If the technical preview goes well, we'll plan to scale this up as a paid product at some point in the future.

Is there anyway to port this into emacs?
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