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Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

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Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#61

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

Or they believe that people are too stupid to understand how good their product is.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#62

People have been voluntarily letting Microsoft host their code for years now. And before that they posted their open source code to a centralized site that wasn't open source. This is one of those things where of course it was going to happen. GitHub was VC funded, they were going to either exit to a big company or try to become one. Eventually the bill was going to come due and everyone knew this. You can choose to…

If I remember initially GitHub (before MS) was free for open source and pay for everyone else. It wasn’t an entirely new idea (source forge?) but it use git which was rising in popularity. I think GitHub added the “pull request” as a really useful add on to git and that really made it take off. Oddly I used selfhosted git at an academic institution. I liked it because it was set up to use “hooks” https://git-scm.com/…

> I think GitHub added the “pull request” as a really useful add on to git and that really made it take off.

Personally, I remember the initial selling point of GitHub being that it was more "social" than any other forges at the time, since we were all wrapped up in the Web 2.0 hype and what not. I think they pushed that on their landing page back in the day too.

It was basically Twitter but redone specifically for developers, and focus on code rather than random thoughts.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#63

People have been voluntarily letting Microsoft host their code for years now. And before that they posted their open source code to a centralized site that wasn't open source. This is one of those things where of course it was going to happen. GitHub was VC funded, they were going to either exit to a big company or try to become one. Eventually the bill was going to come due and everyone knew this. You can choose to…

Even though you are right, that misses the point terribly. It's like using Instagram or Facebook. It's not at all a matter of individual choice when all your friends are on one single platform. Sure you can host your code anywhere, but by not using GitHub you are potentially missing out on a very vibrant community. It's all Microsoft to blame. It bought the medium and took an entire community hostage in the process j…

> It bought the medium and took an entire community hostage in the process just for the sake of profit.

Counterpoint is that is what companies are supposed to do. They are made to make money, the end. The only hope against this for humans is regulation, and that has fallen off the face of the earth. It’s like humans are doomed to repeat the late 19th and early 20th century era over and over.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#64

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

The other explanation is that it’s everywhere because AI pushers would like to integrate it with everything in order for it to be its most useful. Most of them don’t own your OS and your password manager, so they push it instead into a million different little places.

Doesn’t change the fact that it’s stupid, annoying, and bad design, but I don’t know that outright deception is needed to explain it.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#65
post #60

I've had an ongoing support ticket with GH for several months now asking them to actually disable Copilot, as there is Copilot all over and it's clear from inlined JSON on github.com pages when signed in that my account is actually opted in to Copilot features despite Settings page saying features should be disabled. I've never ever opted in to anything related to GH AI and am not a vscode user. They keep closing the…

Do you have an example of "inlined JSON on github.com pages"? I can't imagine what this looks like.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#66

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

The less I know about a thing the more useful an LLM seems to be. I’m working with a new-to-me enterprise code base, the LLM helps me find related (and duplicate) code. Even here it’s usefulness has an expiration date, eventually I’ll know where stuff lives and I’ll use it less and less. Life experience tells me I’m not unique and I suspect the constant cram-AI-into-the-thing is because the vendors are hoping, eventually, they’ll find a use-case for LLMs that sticks.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#67
post #60

I've had an ongoing support ticket with GH for several months now asking them to actually disable Copilot, as there is Copilot all over and it's clear from inlined JSON on github.com pages when signed in that my account is actually opted in to Copilot features despite Settings page saying features should be disabled. I've never ever opted in to anything related to GH AI and am not a vscode user. They keep closing the…

Please point to the ticket so we can add to your voice.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#68
I'm getting quite sick of how it is forced on you. It's not just yet-another useful feature, they are shoveling it into everything, and giving it the most prominent place possible.

I don't want AI getting in the way on Github. I don't want an unremovable AI button in my Office 365 mail client. I don't want to get nagging AI popups every. single. time. I open the GCP console.

A year or two I was ambivalent about AI, and willing to give it a try. These days? I actively hate it. Like all nagging ads: if you have to force it on me this badly, how can it be anything but complete garbage?

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#69

People have been voluntarily letting Microsoft host their code for years now. And before that they posted their open source code to a centralized site that wasn't open source. This is one of those things where of course it was going to happen. GitHub was VC funded, they were going to either exit to a big company or try to become one. Eventually the bill was going to come due and everyone knew this. You can choose to…

I have been paying them a monthly fee for private repositories for as long as I can remember.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#70

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

They aren't really talking out of both sides, it is just all full-court-press marketing.
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