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Copilot edited an ad into my PR

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Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#241

Post by henry2023 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #222
plastic041 wrote: post #118

This "ad" is not exactly new. Looks like MS thinks it's a "tip" rather than an ad. I don't know if Raycast team even knows about this. https://github.com/PlagueHO/plagueho.github.io/pull/24#issue... Copilot has been adding "(emoji) (tip)" thing since May 2025. GitHub copilot was released in May 2025, so basically it has had an ad since beginning. There are 1.5m of these things in GitHub. https://github.com/search?q=%…

If Microsoft is willing to put ads into your PRs via Copilot like this, imagine what they could put into your codebase itself with Copilot. Or what Microsoft could do, run, install, etc on/from your computer while running their Copilot agents. This is the same company that puts ads in your start menu and reinserts them with Windows updates even if you manually removed them.

I wonder if there will come a time where I can pay M$ to sabotage my competition codebase

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#242

Post by tyleo »

It’s even worse than the title says. As some other comments point out, this is in millions of repositories across GitHub.

More like, “Copilot edits ads into PRs.”

The title almost makes it sound like it could be a single fluke/one bad prompt but it’s really enshitification at massive scale.

https://github.com/search?q=%22%E2%9A%A1+Quickly+spin+up+cop...

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#243

Post by sehansen »

heavyset_go wrote: post #222
plastic041 wrote: post #118

This "ad" is not exactly new. Looks like MS thinks it's a "tip" rather than an ad. I don't know if Raycast team even knows about this. https://github.com/PlagueHO/plagueho.github.io/pull/24#issue... Copilot has been adding "(emoji) (tip)" thing since May 2025. GitHub copilot was released in May 2025, so basically it has had an ad since beginning. There are 1.5m of these things in GitHub. https://github.com/search?q=%…

If Microsoft is willing to put ads into your PRs via Copilot like this, imagine what they could put into your codebase itself with Copilot. Or what Microsoft could do, run, install, etc on/from your computer while running their Copilot agents. This is the same company that puts ads in your start menu and reinserts them with Windows updates even if you manually removed them.

"Reflections on Trusting Trust" for the new era. MSVC doesn't compile a secret master-password into your software, just a Copilot ad.

("Reflections on Trusting Trust" Turing Award Lecture by Ken Thompson: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...)

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#244

Post by hnlmorg »

masswerk wrote: post #133
politelemon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But “sent from iPhone” is sometimes useful, No, it is still an advert, and not useful in the least.

Back in the day, it was useful, as in, "Expect awkward phrasing and unintended effects of autocorrection, because mobile device. This message doesn't necessarily reflect the intent of the sender." (Considerate users would/could edit the signature to something w/o a product name in it.) Nowadays, this is pretty much the norm and no explicit warning ist required anymore.

That just means the person sending the message didn’t bother to proof read their message before sending. And you don’t need to be on an iPhone to mistype a message.

A simpler explanation was that it was a shameful advert injected into the end of people’s emails.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#246

Post by cess11 »

jruohonen wrote: post #76
anton-g wrote: post #55

Well, you are not alone: https://github.com/search?q=%22%E2%9A%A1+Quickly+spin+up+cop...

Interesting indeed. I wonder how long GitHub as a platform will be there as a viable option. Anyone who remembers SourceForge?

SourceForge is still chugging along. It hosts some prominent projects:

https://sourceforge.net/directory/linux/

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#247

Post by bbkane »

Hizonner wrote: post #240
masswerk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day, it was useful, as in, "Expect awkward phrasing and unintended effects of autocorrection, because mobile device. This message doesn't necessarily reflect the intent of the sender." (Considerate users would/could edit the signature to something w/o a product name in it.) Nowadays, this is pretty much the norm and no explicit warning ist required anymore.

So an automatic "I am a lazy piece of shit and think my time and convenience are worth more than yours" warning? I guess that's useful.

I always felt like it was "I prioritized a speedy response on my phone instead of an elegant response from my computer at a later time".

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#248

Post by mxmilkiib »

theturtletalks wrote: post #143
KGunnerud wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another step into ensh*ttification? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ

It's becoming clearer and clearer that open-source is our only hope against enshittification. Everything that is VC backed or publicly traded will become enshittified, it's just a matter of time. At least with open-source, you can fork it and remove the "features" or point your agent to it and have it write the feature in your tech stack. Hell, I just saw an amazing open-source alternative to Raycast[0] and just repl…

public/legislative demand for data portability is imho the movement that will help shift society from this cycle

edit: oh, that and distributed authentication and distributed discovery

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#249

Post by le-mark »

sehansen wrote: post #243
heavyset_go wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Microsoft is willing to put ads into your PRs via Copilot like this, imagine what they could put into your codebase itself with Copilot. Or what Microsoft could do, run, install, etc on/from your computer while running their Copilot agents. This is the same company that puts ads in your start menu and reinserts them with Windows updates even if you manually removed them.

"Reflections on Trusting Trust" for the new era. MSVC doesn't compile a secret master-password into your software, just a Copilot ad. ("Reflections on Trusting Trust" Turing Award Lecture by Ken Thompson: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref... )

+1000 Everyone in technology should read this.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#250

Post by timrogers »

Tim from the Copilot coding agent team here. We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again for future PRs.

We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent. The goal was to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow. But hearing the feedback here, and on reflection, this was the wrong judgement call. We won't do something like this again.

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