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Coping with Copilot

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Re: Coping with Copilot

#231

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dragonwriter wrote: post #164
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

someone can still mirror your stuff on github. I wonder if they should make a special open source license, that disallows use of the source code for the purpose of training something like Copilot.

> I wonder if they should make a special open source license, that disallows use of the source code for the purpose of training something like Copilot. Since Microsoft uses material for copilot outside of licensing on the basis that it is Fair Use, that would probably have no effect in practice on whether or not the material is used in training something like Copilot. For that to matter, you’d first have to win a law…

I don't care about all the handwaving here, it comes down to this.

The moment a fragment of code from a GPL'd or AGPL'd project shows up almost verbatim in someone's closed source or non-copylefted, etc. project, and someone proves it, sparks are going to fly.

And it's probably already happening, just people haven't discovered it yet.

How many years did the Oracle/Google lawsuit go on for? And in the end about a handful of a lines of code only tangentially related to the issue at hand?

Part of the lesson from that must be: employers should be telling their workers to say TF away from Copilot or things like it. And be careful in general when browsing source. License literacy is critical.

I don't touch it because I need to feed my kids. I don't need my career exploded. Overcautious? Maybe. I'll let someone else find out. I make a living in and around open source software.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#232

Post by emeryberger »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #155
hospadar wrote: post #43

I've always thought that the ability to communicate to other humans about programs and to be able to synthesize a conceptual understanding from looking at code are highly valuable and sometimes-overlooked in the workplace. Assignments to write a function don't really demonstrate either skill. Maybe more assignments like: - "Here is a function that is supposed to generate a fibonacci sequence, but it is not correct, e…

Those two questions are definitely within the reach of current AI. Not within 100%, but probably better than 70%.

Agreed. I just tried this by writing three sort functions named "some_sort", "another_sort", and "yet_another_sort". I started comments after each with "# The algorithm used in some_sort is known as: " and Copilot correctly completed them in all three cases (bubble, insertion, and merge).

Re: Coping with Copilot

#233

Post by stew-j »

emeryberger wrote: post #212

Hi everyone, article author here. I was also interviewed by The Register about this topic: https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/copilot_github_studen... .

I might have missed it today in your articles or comments here--it's been a hectic day--but has there been some study of just how different code would be given that the students are using the same text from questions? Is there randomization intrinsic to Copilot, or is it just because minor variations in textual input causes code to be so different?

My wife taught CS, she did catch cheaters pre-Copilot, and my first thought it that she probably would enter test questions and print out a reference sheet for Copilot generated results.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#234

Post by stew-j »

criloz2 wrote: post #85

I have been using copilot for two months and I find it more annoying than useful, am the only one that feel like this?, I also used tabnine, and it gives a lot of syntax errors in rust, so I could barely use it for a week. I definitely can agree that copilot is better than tabnine, but I feel like writing code is the easy part of programming, and copilot doesn't offer a crazy help to justify the monthly payment and t…

I'm not sure how it would be done, there might not even be enough existing code to train it on, but I would like to try out Copilot for code-based CAD models in something like OpenSCAD. I've never tried it at all, but thanks for sharing your experience, all.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#235

Post by bayindirh »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #231
dragonwriter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if they should make a special open source license, that disallows use of the source code for the purpose of training something like Copilot. Since Microsoft uses material for copilot outside of licensing on the basis that it is Fair Use, that would probably have no effect in practice on whether or not the material is used in training something like Copilot. For that to matter, you’d first have to win a law…

I don't care about all the handwaving here, it comes down to this. The moment a fragment of code from a GPL'd or AGPL'd project shows up almost verbatim in someone's closed source or non-copylefted, etc. project, and someone proves it, sparks are going to fly. And it's probably already happening, just people haven't discovered it yet. How many years did the Oracle/Google lawsuit go on for? And in the end about a hand…

> The moment a fragment of code from a GPL'd or AGPL'd project shows up almost verbatim in someone's closed source or non-copylefted, etc. project, and someone proves it, sparks are going to fly.

I'm hoarding popcorn and can't wait for that, honestly.

> License literacy is critical.

It's beyond critical, but most people I have talked says that they see the right to copy and use any code they see online. They don't care.

Building this open source corpus was not easy, and we need to defend it too. This is a culture.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#236

Post by Brian_K_White »

It sounds like copilot could ultimately be just another progression in the definition of normal or baseline, like using calculators in math classes.

Whatever the current state of the art and tools of the trade are, that's what they are, and probably the bulk of courses will just adapt to reflect that state of reality and incorporate that into the courses.

Outside of maybe some specialist courses that may still exist but most students wouldn't need to take, it would just be expected that most students use the current tools to accomplish the tasks. Even going so far as to provide free student access to any paid tools to avoid giving the rich kids an unfair advantage.

The nature of posed problems, and their teaching purpose (why they are posed and what you get out of them) would just change from what they are now.

Whatever the "calculator" can do, simply becomes uninteresting and not required for most people to worry about.

My first couple years of school I was taking mechanical engineering, and it was right during a transition where we were doing both manual and cad drafting. There is a lot of geometry tricks both physical drawing and math required to generate accurate views of any shaped objects intersecting with any other shaped objects, viewed from any angle, sliced at any depth.

We spent a lot of time and effort on that. That is all done by magic now inside the cad engine.

Someone still needs to know it, but 99% of people whos job is to design or otherwise manipulate models of objects do not need to know it.

I, who did learn that stuff, don't think an engineer who didn't have to know how to generate an accurate view with nothing but a pencil and a calculator is a less capable less insightful less quality engineer.

If anything they may be better for not having to spend as much of their intellect on mechanics & implementation vs ideas. The knowledge & skills I'm talking about don't contribute to their understanding of the real job, they aren't foundations that the later stages build on. It's just labor of no value at all except to the cad engine designer. It had a value in the past because it was a form of literacy. It was simply the only way to document the ideas you were fabricating.

Perhaps copilot is like that.

I don't know and I'm not saying it is, but it could be.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#238

Post by sodality2 »

moffkalast wrote: post #46
jefftk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big change here is how much easier it is? Students, like everyone else, are lazy. Previously just doing the assignment was typically less work than cheating, and Copilot makes that much less common.

Type the assignment into google and press enter vs type it as a comment and press tab? Seems roughly the same amount of effort, and since Copilot is not free anymore most students won't bother paying for access on any kind of scale that matters. Whoever was going to cheat will cheat regardless. Besides it's one of those "you won't have a calculator with you everyday" fallacies. If you can solve problems with Copilot…

> Copilot is not free anymore most students won't bother paying for access

Copilot is free for students: https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-gith...

Re: Coping with Copilot

#239

Post by morelisp »

nightpool wrote: post #184
tgv wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if students are unwilling to learn, or are taking shortcuts, it will ultimately hurt them in the long run That's a very limited, and dismissive view. If you allow students to use copilot, you're handing out certificates or diplomas to people who can't code. That will very quickly erode the value of your institute's certification, and with it, that of the other students. Otherwise, why not give everyone an MSc in CS…

I'll be honest: has anyone here ever looked at a resume with an MSc in CS and said "Yep, I bet this person knows how to write code well"? Surely there are some research level jobs where a PhD in CS is necessary, but for most coding jobs, an MSc is just 2 years of missed experience where you're learning bad habits and antipatterns by never having your code used by other people in any strenuous way. Certainly there are…

I'll generally rate an MSc lower than BA/BSc. (The exceptions would be if you needed the MSc to meet some visa requirement, or if you had an BSc in some weakly-related field beforehand.)

From downvoters: I would genuinely love to hear a defense of an MSc per se. What university has their shit together enough to actually accelerate/compress 2-4y of work experience into 1-2y years of academic project, which is what's always the claim? If all you're doing is the courses, those are accessible to 4th year undergraduates in every university I know.

To a person, everyone I've interviewed who did an MSc for the coursework had to because they finished their BSc with minimum effort and no one was interested in hiring them. Even worse is when you see 4y BSc, 2y work, 1y MSc.

Re: Coping with Copilot

#240

Post by netr0ute »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #185
baby wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re writing code you are the audience for copilot. Just try it

This sounds kind of creepy culty. I think it's the pushing "just try it" vs merely reporting "I like it".

If you're into being hydrated, water is great. Just try it
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