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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#311

Post by dannytatom »

amelius wrote: post #201
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.

> Also feels kind of icky to train on open source projects and then charge for the output. How would you feel if they just provided the software without the model, assuming you could train it yourself on open-source code in an instant?

I don't know enough about how GTP-3 and ML work to really answer this, but I think I'd be fine with what you're saying if I understand the question. If they provided (and charged) for the infrastructure, but the model was FOSS and community-driven, it would be less icky I think.

I just don't like the idea of taking people's work (without asking or checking licenses) and then selling it back to them. It'd be like if Stack Overflow decided to start charging to see answers and not asking or giving a split to the person who gave the answer. I realize they aren't just copy/pasting so not a perfect parallel, but still.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#313

Post by jazzyjackson »

wyager wrote: post #203
mccorrinall wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to require rights for scraping publicly available resources? Damn, rip Google.

You need to acquire rights for copy/pasting my code and selling it in a book, for example.

but what if I publish an algorithm in my book that just happens to be the same as code you've written, say, because we both had the same professor in school, or that it's the obvious solution to the problem.

once you've written a few lines of code as part of a larger project, is the rest of the world prohibited from writing the same code unless they agree to the terms of your license?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#315

Post by [deleted] »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #197
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…

It seems unfortunately clear that generative ML as typically practiced falls under fair use of even the most restrictive licenses or lack thereof (e.g. a training set including disney movies without disney’s permission). Some people say that’s great and it’s legal hooray, but I would love it if the law caught up and added requirements to the models trained this way. If you benefit from other people’s stuff without th…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#316

Post by soraki_soladead »

jmkni wrote: post #306
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 been using Copilot non-stop > I am honestly flabbergasted they think it's worth 10$/mo These two statments seem contradictory to me. Why are you using it 'non-stop' if it isn't even worth $10/month?

My interpretation is that it's fun to use so they use it a lot but not altogether useful (eta: and/or necessary): they didn't miss it on work projects.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#317

Post by jazzyjackson »

andrewallbright wrote: post #119
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…

I do think they should pay the folks whose code they used to train the AI. Something like how Spotify pays artists based on how much their music/content is listened to.

perhaps they can reimburse them with free access to an IDE and perpetual hosting of their repos

/snark! I think it'd be great if AI could tag its sources and distribute money accordingly, but I expect some perverse incentives to pop up in doing so...

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#318

Post by hyperbovine »

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?

You can justify almost any expenditure using this logic. Think marginally.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#319

Post by msoad »

nonethewiser wrote: post #115
msoad wrote: post #92

I've been using Copilot for a while now. I'm lucky that I don't have to pay moving forward but I would totally pay $10/mo for this. When writing tests, this thing works so well that it saves me 10-20% time writing code so $10 is nothing.

> I'm lucky that I don't have to pay moving forward but I would totally pay $10/mo for this. How? I was in beta but looks like I'm kicked out. I also verified my student status but get prompted to pay. Are you a maintainer? Have you verified that you have access?

I'm a maintainer of a large open source project

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#320

Post by omginternets »

jerf wrote: post #226
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…

"how to put a sentence together describing the rules, it absolutely doesn't actually understand how "Chii" melds work" The more experience I get with GPT-3 type technologies, the more I would never let them near my code. It wasn't an intent of the technology per se, but it has proved to be very good at producing superficially appealing output that can stand up not only to a quick scan, but to a moderately deep readin…

I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis, but feel like it’s ignoring the elephant in the room: writing code is not the bottleneck in need of optimization. Conceiving the solution is. Any time “saved” through Copilot and it’s ilk is immediately nullified by having to check it’s correctness. From there, the problem is worsened by the Frankensteinesque stitching together of disparate parts that you describe.

I can’t imagine how Copilot would save anything but a negligible amount of effort for someone who is actually thinking about what they’re writing.

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