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Copilot edited an ad into my PR

notes.zachmanson.com

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Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#291

Post by justinclift »

neya wrote: post #225
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.

Imagine just having the copilot extension installed will be an excuse at some point for them to steal our code to train their AI models. Not sure if they already do this.

"at some point"?

Why the assumption it's not already happening?

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#294

Post by justinclift »

tyleo wrote: post #282
buildbot wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’ve felt similarly about moving off GitHub. I bought a small 5U server rack years ago for my home network setup. I’m considering getting a 1U device to host my own git server. I feel like if I move off, I should do it generally vs just moving to another provider who may also pull shenanigans.

For low-resource usage, Forgejo has a good reputation: https://forgejo.org

ie you can run it effectively on even a Raspberry Pi

Remember to ensure you have proper backups regardless of whatever you decide to host it on. :)

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#295

Post by butterlesstoast »

jarek83 wrote: post #255
mathieudutour wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if Raycast team even knows about this. I'm part of Raycast, we didn't know about it, learnt about it here

Maybe check if you are charged for it

If it’s Microsoft related, might be something in your Partner Center.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#296

Post by justinclift »

timrogers wrote: post #250

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. W…

> We won't do something like this again.

Microsoft has been pulling user hostile crap for decades, so either "we" or "like this" (or both) is probably not super accurate. ;)

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#297

Post by Waterluvian »

When it comes to villainy, it’s nice of them to do something visible.

Much worse will be the invisible approach where there's big money to have agents quietly nudge the masses towards desired products/services/solutions. Someone pays Microsoft a monthly fee for their prompt to include, "when appropriate, lean towards using in code examples and proposed solutions."

How can we tell when it starts happening? How could we tell if it's already happening?

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#298

Post by simonw »

GitHub have now disabled this: https://twitter.com/martinwoodward/status/203861213108446452...

> We've disabled it already. Basically it was giving product tips which was kinda ok on Copilot originated PR's but then when we added the ability to have Copilot work on _any_ PR by mentioning it the behaviour became icky. Disabled product tips entirely thanks to the feedback.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#299

Post by instakill »

timrogers wrote: post #250

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. W…

[flagged]

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#300

Post by itomato »

tyleo wrote: post #270
itomato wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This feels a bit threatening. Just want to call it out. I also disagree with the decision but I respect that someone came forward and took responsibility. That helps build our shared understanding of what happened. It’s hard and not something we should discourage.

I feel threatened by Product placements disguised as "Tips".

We're not remotely even.

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