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GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

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Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#111

Post by konart »

throw83288 wrote: post #94
suyash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony doesn't end there, later in the post they say "We’re excited to share a first look at our autonomous SWE agent and how we envision these types of agents will fit into the GitHub user experience. When the product we are building under the codename Project Padawan ships later this year, it will allow you to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, using any of the GitHub clients, and have it produce fully te…

> Effectively they have completely automated SWE job, pair programmer was just a marketing speak, real intention is clear. Frankly, this was obvious to me since the Copilot Workspace announcement. It's so hard not for me to not slide completely into nihilistic despair as a student right now. I chose wrong, and now there is nothing I can do. Day in and day out I'm talking about my projects and internships as if my ent…

>Call me a doomsday prepper

>Seems obvious that I missed the boat on LLMs.

Don't worry. As the other commenter said it: we've seen it all a few times already.

I clearly remember how some people reacted to Ruby on Rails as if it's going to replace them just because it provides... well a framework.

LLMs won't replace even a junior dev anytime soon. Not to mention senior dev etc.

People who's main job was creating landing pages and simple shops might be in trouble.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#112

Post by phil917 »

suyash wrote: post #55
diggan wrote: post #38

> When we introduced GitHub Copilot back in 2021, we had a clear goal: to make developers’ lives easier with an AI pair programmer that helps them write better code. The name reflects our belief that artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t replacing the developer. Later: > GitHub Copilot’s new agent mode is capable of iterating on its own code, recognizing errors, and fixing them automatically. Is this Microsoft/GitHub ac…

The irony doesn't end there, later in the post they say "We’re excited to share a first look at our autonomous SWE agent and how we envision these types of agents will fit into the GitHub user experience. When the product we are building under the codename Project Padawan ships later this year, it will allow you to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, using any of the GitHub clients, and have it produce fully te…

"Project Padawan" looks fairly similar to Devin, at least from a user experience perspective. From personal experience, Devin was pretty terrible so we'll see if Microsoft does any better...

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#113

Post by brianmcc »

Not my quote but: "The trillion dollar problem AI is trying to solve is wages. Your wages."

Not wanting to come across all Luddite about it, but we really ought not to stumble blindly into all this.

That said, I remain sceptical. The 10% of my job which is coding just isn't the difficult part.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#114

Post by balls187 »

gokhan wrote: post #49
threatofrain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we actually could get to a world where programmers can be replaced, we'll also likely find that vast swathes of the population will be replaced. Then we'll need a totally new conversation on how society should look. That conversation is coming no matter what, because there will not be a global consensus to stop ML development, esp. on the war front.

As a programmer, I think it's easier to replace programmers than many other occupations. We work with generic DSLs called programming languages, which can be easily handled by AI. Most of what we produce can be easily parsed by an AI. We work in small, incremental tasks which is perfect for AI. Most of us use the same set of tools. What else? UI is similar everywhere, especially in LoB apps. What we produce is repeti…

"The report of my death was an exaggeration." - Mark Twain.

I don't see it as "replacing programmers" but rather, trying to solve the types of problems that programmers solve, but more cheaply.

I'm not sure your age relative to mine, but I got my start a hair breath after 9-11 in the defense industry. I've experienced the "tectonic" shifts in programming since that time. In each case, Programmers seemed to shift away from the work that was being done more cheaply, to work that require more specialization that was harder to be done.

I see the promise of AI as a threat to my job, but the reality is likely more like what happened with automobiles vs horses. Less horse shoe makers, more car mechanics.

Some day, I may be too tired and too dumb to become a mechanic. But today is not that day.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#115

Post by throw83288 »

toprerules wrote: post #98
throw83288 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Effectively they have completely automated SWE job, pair programmer was just a marketing speak, real intention is clear. Frankly, this was obvious to me since the Copilot Workspace announcement. It's so hard not for me to not slide completely into nihilistic despair as a student right now. I chose wrong, and now there is nothing I can do. Day in and day out I'm talking about my projects and internships as if my ent…

This must be your first hype cycle then. Most of us who are senior+ have been through these cycles before. There's always a 10% gap that makes it impossible to fully close the gap between needing a programmer and a machine doing the work. Nothing about the current evolution of LLMs suggests that they are close to solving this. The current messaging is basically, look how far we got this time, we will for sure reach A…

So Work=0.1^Ct where C is the development pace. Everything points to the C of AI being large. How quickly does Work become a rounding error?

Sure, C=log(t), but it could also be C=ke^t. Everything to me feels like it's the latter, I really want to be wrong.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#116

Post by bdangubic »

konart wrote: post #111
throw83288 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Effectively they have completely automated SWE job, pair programmer was just a marketing speak, real intention is clear. Frankly, this was obvious to me since the Copilot Workspace announcement. It's so hard not for me to not slide completely into nihilistic despair as a student right now. I chose wrong, and now there is nothing I can do. Day in and day out I'm talking about my projects and internships as if my ent…

>Call me a doomsday prepper >Seems obvious that I missed the boat on LLMs. Don't worry. As the other commenter said it: we've seen it all a few times already. I clearly remember how some people reacted to Ruby on Rails as if it's going to replace them just because it provides... well a framework. LLMs won't replace even a junior dev anytime soon. Not to mention senior dev etc. People who's main job was creating landi…

LLMs won't replace even a junior dev anytime soon. Not to mention senior dev etc.

except of course they have already … in many places … and counting :)

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#117

Post by ALittleLight »

brianmcc wrote: post #113

Not my quote but: "The trillion dollar problem AI is trying to solve is wages. Your wages." Not wanting to come across all Luddite about it, but we really ought not to stumble blindly into all this. That said, I remain sceptical. The 10% of my job which is coding just isn't the difficult part.

True, but if the coding becomes trivial then you'll be replaced by a good PM who can work with an agent team.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#119

Post by semi-extrinsic »

throw83288 wrote: post #82
post-it wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it doesn't look like there's been much progress on the robotics front.

Until reasoner AI 10x's research and solves it far ahead of schedule. You don't even need robotics, just a good multi-modal reasoner model with domain knowledge that you can attach to a headset manna-style [0]. The only thing that makes blue collar work different from any minimum wage labor is the System 2 reasoning required, and that'll get solved. [0] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

It sounds like you've never used a welding torch, installed a kitchen sink, or done similar blue collar work. These jobs will never be replaced by robots, or by a non-trained person wearing a headset.

Re: GitHub Copilot: The Agent Awakens

#120

Post by scarface_74 »

diggan wrote: post #69
nonethewiser wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think making Copilot better by handling its bad ouput means replacing developers. And GitHub certainly isn’t saying the goal is to replace developers. I accept that is how you are interpreting it and I can see the argument. But Github isnt trying to get one over in their messaging. And besides I just dont agree with the idea that it takes the developer out of the loop. Whose controlling this better version of…

> I dont think making Copilot better by handling its bad ouput means replacing developers The blog post goes through more than what I mentioned in my comment. For example: > When the product we are building under the codename Project Padawan ships later this year, it will allow you to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, using any of the GitHub clients, and have it produce fully tested pull requests. Once a task…

> How is that not trying to replace at least a small section of junior/boilerplate developers?

This was a danger before AI ever became a thing. If that’s all someone is doing, there was always a danger of being outsourced to someone who would work for less than you would.

And today in 2025, ignoring AI, there are thousands of generic framework developers struggling to get a job because every job they apply to has thousands of applications and companies can choose any good enough developer.

It was always hard to break the can’t get a job don’t have experience cycle. Now it’s going to be harder.

The solution at least for awhile is to run closer to the customer/stakeholder.

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