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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#281

Post by natefinch »

hnbad wrote: post #265
natefinch wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not copying open source code. If you learn an algorithm to balance a binary tree from reading GPL code, and then go use that algorithm in your own closed-source project, with your own variables and types and context, are you breaking GPL? You're not copying the code. Just because you learned about it from reading GPL code doesn't mean that whenever you write tree balancing code from now until the end of time, al…

If you decompile runtime bytecode and assign your own variable names, does the copyright of the original source code no longer apply? If you trace a picture and use it in your work of art, does the copyright of the original picture no longer apply? If you copy a tune but set it to new instruments, does the copyright of the original tune no longer apply? Sampling is a legal minefield in music, why would it become less…

If you teach someone about music theory by listening to Stairway to Heaven, and then they write their own song that starts with an A minor chord... are they violating copyright of Stairway to Heaven?

Copilot isn't sampling. Sampling is literally copying snippets of someone else's music and putting it into your music. Copilot doesn't do that. There's no giant database of text that it just slurps suggestions out of.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#283

Post by longrod »

I have had a lot more success with Tabnine. One, it runs offline as well as online so the performance difference with/without internet is unnoticeable. Two, it understands context much better. I was prototyping in Python with Tabnine turned on without the LSP and I felt no need to install one. It spits out uncannily good suggestions if you are using a popular library like Beautifulsoup etc.

Copilot is marketed as a pair programmer but the code quality is often times just wrong, not just bad. It thinks it understands what I want based on the function name and parameters but the generated output is no where close to what I want.

Multiline AI generated suggestions are not a good idea anyway (not yet at least). AI based LSP/auto completer would be much better at this stage with a lot faster DX.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#284

Post by deathanatos »

baumandm wrote: post #215
presentation wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is not that it’s trained on open source code but that it’s trained on code whose licenses may not permit it. If you license your project in a permissive way then I don’t see a problem.

Are there actually any licenses which do not permit training an AI model on the code?

(IANAL) It's a tool, transforming source code. The result thus seems like a derivative work; whether you are or are not allowed to use that in your work depends on the originating license. (And perhaps, your license. E.g., you can't derive from a GPL project and license it as MIT, as the GPL doesn't permit that. But to license as GPL would be fine. But this minimal example assumes all the input to Copilot was GPL, which I rather doubt is true, and I don't think we even know what the input was.)

I think there might be some in this thread who don't consider these derivatives, for whatever reason, but it seems to be that if rangeCheck() passes de minimis, then the output from Copilot almost certainly does, too. That a tool is doing the copying and mutating, as opposed to a human, seems immaterial to it all. (Now, I don't know that I agree with rangeCheck() not being de minimis … and yet.) Or they think that Copilot is "thinking", which, ha, no.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#287

Post by visarga »

cjauvin wrote: post #227
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…

It's interesting to draw parallels between the way you describe it and the way more general large language models (LLMs, of which Copilot is in a sense, a specialized instance, applied to code, instead of general language) operate: they also always "know" how to answer any specific question, or how to complete any prompt, without any exception. A model which would be able to "show restraint", and "know when it doesn'…

There are language models that have an internal search engine, they can copy/verify the facts they generate from the source. They are also easier to update, just refresh the search engine. Now you have to provide a collection of "true facts".

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#288

Post by toyg »

rexreed wrote: post #233
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?

The fact that such a program is so hyped, is actually an indicator of how much boilerplate and wheel-reinvention goes on among programmers every day.

The state of the sector is somewhat embarrassing. We have armies of monkeys well-paid to bang out the same Java/Javascript/C#/Python over, and over, and over...

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#289

Post by jpomykala »

It’s not worth $10/mo. I wouldn’t even pay $5/mo. Usually, it generates code with incorrect logic what is sometimes hard to notice.

It’s also awful that they took free code (open-source), and now they want money for it. Make it open-source and free to use…

Some say it’s great for repetitive tasks, but if you write repetitive code (tests also) maybe you should look for other solutions than “auto-generating” unmaintainable code.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#290

Post by mrits »

bluelightning2k wrote: post #100

My unpopular take: most comments here are super entitled. To paraphrase: "sure it's minblowing and the biggest productivity gain in years, but I want it FREE". Yes. You got used to it being free. And now it's not. But $10/mo is a steal. It's more than fair and far, far less than they could get. And no. They don't owe you anything. In fact, they probably host your code (often free), and less directly provide your IDE…

mind blowing? I'd pay $10/month to disable it
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