This headline is false; it will not go take your private repos and dump them into a training dataset. Rather, GitHub will train on your copilot interactions with your private repos. If you do not use copilot, this makes no difference to you, though you should probably still turn it off.
If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
31–40 of 346 posts
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#32How do I opt out of this for my own private repos? I don't see anything related to this as I've got a ton of settings for Copilot itself (I have access to Copilot through my work org)
https://github.com/settings/copilot/features, it's near the bottom "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training"
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#33I've been saying this since 2023 > If your data is stored in a database that a company can freely read and access (i.e. not end-to-end encrypted), the company will eventually update their ToS so they can use your data for AI training — the incentives are too strong to resist https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37124188
Edit: Okay, sounds like you guys are pissed to the point where it seems like the pro tip here is to stop using GitHub. Pro tip: sign up for the business/enterprise version when reasonable in price. I do this with Google Workspace. You can also do it with GitHub. (Google doesn’t train on Workspace, Github doesn’t train on business customers, etc)
> Google doesn’t train on Workspace, Github doesn’t train on business customers, etc
...yet
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#34I wonder how effective it would be to sabotage the training by publishing deliberately bad code. A FizzBuzz with O(n^2) complexity. A function named "quicksort" that actually implements bogosort. A "filter_xss" function that's a no-op or just does something else entirely.
The possibilities are endless. I thought of this after remembering seeing a post a couple months ago about how it doesn't take a significant amount of bad data to poison an LLM's training.
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#35How do I opt out of this for my own private repos? I don't see anything related to this as I've got a ton of settings for Copilot itself (I have access to Copilot through my work org)
I believe it is under:
Settings->Copilot->Features->Privacy=>[ Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training
Allow GitHub to collect and use my Inputs, Outputs, and associated context to train and improve AI models. Read more in the Privacy Statement. ]
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#36Shouldn’t this be “Tell HN”?
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#37It's not clear to me what happens to personal repos if you're getting Copilot for work, or where to disable it there.
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#38It is the feature "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training" that needs to be disabled. Right?
Or am I missing some trick / dark GUI pattern? Just want to make sure.
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#39[deleted]
Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos
#40What's a good alternative for free private repos?
GitLab would be a good bet here. We started on their free tier and used that for a couple of years, I was very happy with it. Not sure how the tiers might have evolved since.
And according to their PM and privacy policy, they're not training their models on your code[0].
[0]: https://forum.gitlab.com/t/can-i-opt-out-from-my-code-being-...