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GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

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Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#251

Post by danielvaughn »

drdrek wrote: post #167

I would love to hear from other people here but I tried it for a while and dropped my subscription. For short things it was nice, but the larger the suggestion the worst it got. I found myself constantly mentally debugging the output it suggested, I do not know if it was faster but I was mentally exhausted by it, unable to go for long periods of time. Dumb code completion is predictable, I know I'll need to press dow…

I haven't used copilot but your experience sounds exactly like what I would expect. Since AI is based on prediction, it makes sense that broader predictions would be less accurate. I think stringing together output from a lot of smaller predictions would yield better results. Which, at the end of the day, means that a human + AI will always be more productive than AI on its own. At least for the foreseeable future.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#252

Post by madeofpalk »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #119
w-m wrote: post #33

I tried getting myself on the CLI waitlist ( https://githubnext.com/projects/copilot-cli/ ). That they use ffmpeg as the example hits a huge pain point for me. But: "Next Waitlist by GitHub Next would like permission to: Act on your behalf Not owned or operated by GitHub" Why does signing up for a waitlist require me to give permissions to an app to act in my account? An app that isn't even officially from GitHub? Th…

It’s officially from GitHub. There is some weird language (that I’ll absolutely pass feedback on to the team), I think because GitHub Next is a different organization from GitHub proper, but I can assure you, this is an official GitHub app. But I totally agree that this isn’t a great/clear message about where this is from.

I raised this concern before about how unclear this is and the concern was pretty much dismissed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33539150

"Techies" often lament about how silly users are about falling for phishing tricks, but then they also routinely make it so difficult to determine what's legit from what's fake.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#253

Post by Vespasian »

programmarchy wrote: post #132
jghn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concern over this is the #1 reason I have not yet tried to use Copilot. For my hobby projects I don't care enough to pay for it. And if it's phoning home proprietary code, I can't allow that to happen.

It’s worth it even for hobby projects, imo. It reduces the time spent on mundane tasks and allows you to think at a higher level and just move faster. Maybe you achieve a level of zen from implementing utility level code, similar to how some people might still write assembly code, but otherwise it’s a valuable tool/skill to learn. Tangentially, I think there’s some fear associated with adopting AI tools, perhaps beca…

I'm being reminded of a close friend of mine who is a car mechanic. In recent years the fraction of BEV and PHEV among new cars has risen to ~20% which absolutely will influence his job and will require new skills of a different kind.

Yet, despite the obvious evidence, he is unwillingly to even acknowledge the possibility that this is happening and refuses to research what it could mean to him (which may be very little).

I never quite understood why. Certainly just keeping in touch with the world wouldn't hurt right?

With the rise of AI, I think I get it. There's a part of me that is scared to shit about the prospect of being made redundant in the near future with all my acquired skill being worthless in this new world. The temptation to put my head into the sand and hope it "blows" over is strong.

I've resigned myself to never become like my friend and consequently have recently shelled out for a year of Copilot. My thinking is that at worst it's 100€ wasted and at best I'm not blindsided by what is coming anyway.

The reality will probably fall somewhere on a middle ground where there are still jobs to be found.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#254

Post by xdennis »

dougmwne wrote: post #145
shmatt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a big tech company and there is a complete ban on coding using LLMs. The fear is sending our code for the model to learn in the future. This is also why then hype around GTP4-powered Office is overhyped. Very rarely will a corporation be OK with GPT-4 running inferences on their internal documents and excel sheets Until an on-prem solution is offered, many of these companies won't get anything out of the te…

How do you reconcile what you just said with the massive popularity of cloud services? The source code is already sitting in the same data center the LLM GPUs are sitting in. Of course there are some businesses too paranoid to use the cloud, but even intelligence agencies are on board these days.

Probably because people view the cloud as their data in someone else's hands, but AI companies view data as fair game for ingestion, since "they just learn like humans, and you allow humans to view your data, right?".

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#255

Post by Vespasian »

nicky0 wrote: post #223
unshavedyak wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe how you use it? I struggle to imagine how it would even be done. Ie do you write prompts? Just code as normal but frequently hit a "copilot" button? etc Though i do wonder if it'll improve my ability to read code. PRs are a pain because i find it easier to write than read. I'd pay for Copilot in a heartbeat if it was good at spotting PR errors/etc.

Just type your code in the editor. And it offers auto complete suggestions. Sometimes it will complete the entire function based on the function name or a comment. Sometimes it'll just guess the function you want to write, without you typing anything at all. (Turns out a lot of code is rather predictable). By experience though it’s best to go line by line rather than accepting whole function autcompletes. For me, I f…

They have a limited trial or company memberships afaik.

It costs 10$/month 100$/year for individual users.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#256

Post by listless »

bredren wrote: post #129
gonehome wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a so well positioned on this I think Silicon Valley has forgotten what it looks like when they don’t have a horrible CEO. When Microsoft executes well, they’re a scary force. They were exceptional under Gates and it looks like they are again. There’s a massive paradigm shift we’re just at the beginning of and Microsoft has been putting pieces in place for the last couple of years. Nadella has really turn…

If it were not for the impending headset, Apple would look a wee bit caught out as well. I suspect once Apple turns toward gen ai, all of its other advantages (infra, hw, instal base, services, etc) will propel it to forefront.

I'm curious on this as well - although a VR headset at this point feels like a foul ball straight backwards and into the net.

Apple is good at a lot of things but it is AWFUL at AI. Siri is still the worst experience you can have with a language model. That said, all they need to do is integrate some OpenAI API's. In which case, Microsoft STILL wins because of its investment there and where OpenAI's enormous compute happens - which is likely in Azure.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#257

Post by kapperchino »

sharemywin wrote: post #191
hu3 wrote: post #130

Scary. For the first time in my life, I feel like my expertise is at risk of being rendered obsolete. Maybe not this year, but the writing is on the wall. Soon coding without an AI will feel as antiquated as delivering food by horse. And resistance is futile because markets will punish those who refuse. We'll probably need less and less developers as AI advance. Just like we need less manual labor in farms today. And…

I call it Universal Pet Income. Because at that point won't we just be AI's pets? Not that I'm against it. just call it for what it is.

Not AI’s pets, but oligarch’s pets

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#258

Post by pferde »

RivieraKid wrote: post #227
mkaic wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would something smarter than us be our pet?

Because we will have full control over it. It will do what we ask. The AI has no motivation or personality, it's just a tool used by humans.

Maybe it's time to start differentiating between artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness? Surely I can't be the first one to think of this...

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#259

Post by BubbleRings »

madeofpalk wrote: post #252
filmgirlcw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s officially from GitHub. There is some weird language (that I’ll absolutely pass feedback on to the team), I think because GitHub Next is a different organization from GitHub proper, but I can assure you, this is an official GitHub app. But I totally agree that this isn’t a great/clear message about where this is from.

I raised this concern before about how unclear this is and the concern was pretty much dismissed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33539150 "Techies" often lament about how silly users are about falling for phishing tricks, but then they also routinely make it so difficult to determine what's legit from what's fake.

This becoming the top thread here might get their attention. You have a very good point.

Re: GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview

#260

Post by realharo »

RivieraKid wrote: post #193
hu3 wrote: post #130

Scary. For the first time in my life, I feel like my expertise is at risk of being rendered obsolete. Maybe not this year, but the writing is on the wall. Soon coding without an AI will feel as antiquated as delivering food by horse. And resistance is futile because markets will punish those who refuse. We'll probably need less and less developers as AI advance. Just like we need less manual labor in farms today. And…

> Governments will have to ponder about what to do with a world of people who became inferior to machines at almost everything. Universal Basic Income? Inferior to machines at almost everything? Most jobs are safe, look at the 25 most common jobs in the US - cashier, food preparation worker, stocking associate, laborer, janitor, construction worker, bookkeeper, server, medical assistant, bartender, administrative ass…

If there is no more demand for developers for the kind of projects that most work on today, what do you think will be the next area that they'll all try to get into?

Automating all the other stuff that's left on the table.

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