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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#231

Post by hnbad »

natefinch wrote: post #145
karl42 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the use itself as a problem, but rather that the result is not treated as a derivative work of the input. If I train it on GPL code, the result should be GPL, too.

This is kind of like saying that any programmer who has ever learned something from reading GPL code can only use that knowledge when writing GPL code. It's not literally copying the code. The training set isn't stored on disk and regurgitated. Also - there is logic in copilot that checks to make sure it is not suggesting exact duplicates of code from its training set, and if it does, it never sends them to the user.

But Copilot is not a programmer, Copilot is a program. Slapping the "ML" label on a program doesn't magically abdicate its programmers of all responsibility as much as tech companies over the past decade have tried to convince people otherwise.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#232

Post by johnfn »

wyager wrote: post #199
johnfn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Should I have to reimburse the author of every tutorial and Stack Overflow post I read on my journey to becoming a software engineer?

They intentionally opted in to sharing their work with you in a certain way. If someone copy pasted stack overflow answers and made them into a book, which they sold for money, that would be wrong.

OK... but it's totally possible to use Github repo code as a learning resource too, and I've done this often.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#233

Post by rexreed »

Hamcha wrote: post #195

I've been using Copilot non-stop on every hobby project I have ever since they've let me in (2021/07/13) and I am honestly flabbergasted they think it's worth 10$/mo. My experience using it till this day is the following: - It's an amazing all-rounder autocomplete for most boilerplate code. Generally anything that someone who's spent 5 minutes reading the code can do, Copilot can do just as well. - It's terrible if y…

Of course GPT-3 doesn't "understand" what you are doing. All it's doing is generating high probability text based on a huge training corpus. It's guessing what text will come next. That doesn't mean it understands jack squat. It's basically a parrot with a huge database. Polly want a program?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#234

Post by bastardoperator »

causi wrote: post #134
password4321 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> train on open source projects To be specific, the FAQ states: "It has been trained on natural language text and source code from publicly available sources, including code in public repositories on GitHub." Some have raised concerns that Copilot violates at least the spirit of many open source licenses, laundering otherwise unusable code by sprinkling magic AI dust... most likely leaving the Copilot user responsibl…

Yep. The only reason it hasn't been utterly dogpiled by lawyers is that far fewer people care about code than other forms of IP. If I made an AI assistant called PhotoStar to help with digital art and it just attaches Big Bird's face onto a character in my children's book I'm going to get sued. "Hey now, I just hit paste , the software pressed copy by itself" is not going to hold up.

Or the fact that you grant GitHub an implicit license as outlined in the ToS.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#235

Post by tmalsburg2 »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #103
dannytatom wrote: post #54

I've enjoyed using it for free, but not sure it's worth the $10/mo yet. When it works great, it's a nice-to-have for speeding up development but has yet to give me anything I wouldn't be able to just write myself. And when I wish it would give me the answer to something I don't know how to do, it spits out something very wrong. Also feels kind of icky to train on open source projects and then charge for the output.

How can it help you to speed up development but not be worth 10$/month. Your hourly rate can’t be that low.

The fact that GitHub charge only 10$/month suggests that they themselves don’t believe in their product. Because if it would actually work, i.e. speed up software development by, say, >10%, developers should be happy to pay 10 times as much or more.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#236

Post by nacs »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #207
Hamcha wrote: post #195

I've been using Copilot non-stop on every hobby project I have ever since they've let me in (2021/07/13) and I am honestly flabbergasted they think it's worth 10$/mo. My experience using it till this day is the following: - It's an amazing all-rounder autocomplete for most boilerplate code. Generally anything that someone who's spent 5 minutes reading the code can do, Copilot can do just as well. - It's terrible if y…

I've also been using this for months, and would not pay for it. I think i might be getting it for free actually as I haven't been asked to pay yet. I came to the same conclusion as you, you can see comments I made elsewhere in this thread. I'm not thrilled with it.

It has been free but now they're making it a "free 60 day trial" followed by $10 a month.

I've tried it with a few projects with different languages and it's not worth anything close to that $10/m fee personally.

It's OK at filling in a line here and there if it's boilerplate-type code but otherwise, it's like a beginner programmer at best.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#237

Post by mistrial9 »

curo wrote: post #172

Copilot is a steal at $10/m. HN can set itself apart from Twitter and Reddit by celebrating great achievements rather than tearing them down. Copilot stands on the shoulders of open source, yes. So do many of our personal and commercial projects. Copilot benefitted from having beta users. That relationship went both ways. A big thanks to the Copilot team for letting us be a part of the beta. I will happily pay $10/m…

> Copilot is a steal at $10/m.

  agree !!!   as any burgler-thief-attorney will tell you, it is *totally worth it*

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#238

Post by rexreed »

threatofrain wrote: post #229
Hamcha wrote: post #195

I've been using Copilot non-stop on every hobby project I have ever since they've let me in (2021/07/13) and I am honestly flabbergasted they think it's worth 10$/mo. My experience using it till this day is the following: - It's an amazing all-rounder autocomplete for most boilerplate code. Generally anything that someone who's spent 5 minutes reading the code can do, Copilot can do just as well. - It's terrible if y…

Github Copilot is on the fence for me between yes/no at $100 per year. I agree that you should rarely if ever allow Copilot to write multiple lines, as your double-checking or debugging time is going to exceed your time savings — the probability of good-looking but bad code is just that high right now. In order to experience a net time-win you'll likely want to be an intermediate at whatever you're doing. If it were…

Your decision making delta is really $40 a year? How much is your time worth?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#239

Post by IshKebab »

wyager wrote: post #199
johnfn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Should I have to reimburse the author of every tutorial and Stack Overflow post I read on my journey to becoming a software engineer?

They intentionally opted in to sharing their work with you in a certain way. If someone copy pasted stack overflow answers and made them into a book, which they sold for money, that would be wrong.

People do do that. But I think that's a bit different because they add very little extra value. It doesn't take any effort. Why should I give them money?

Copilot is different - it clearly takes a lot of skill and effort to turn a bunch of GitHub repos into a fancy autocomplete system.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#240

Post by threatofrain »

rexreed wrote: post #238
threatofrain wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github Copilot is on the fence for me between yes/no at $100 per year. I agree that you should rarely if ever allow Copilot to write multiple lines, as your double-checking or debugging time is going to exceed your time savings — the probability of good-looking but bad code is just that high right now. In order to experience a net time-win you'll likely want to be an intermediate at whatever you're doing. If it were…

Your decision making delta is really $40 a year? How much is your time worth?

The time savings win is really that marginal. I'm not sure I can save more than 3 hours per year with Copilot. And this isn't saving 3 hours in a single week, this is saving a few seconds here and there accumulated over a year.

Saving time with Copilot is itself a learning process and a probabilistic affair. Copilot can win you a few seconds at a time, but can easily set you back minutes if you aren't careful or experienced. It's the probability of a downward spike in time-win that makes it such a gamble. Such complex deals just turns on the cautious side of my brain.

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