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VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

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Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#181

Post by rsynnott »

ryandrake wrote: post #108
krainboltgreene wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. It's the bourgeoisie dream: A means of production that also does the labor 24/7 and can't complain, infinitely spawnable. Theoretical slavery+, so of course they're throwing everything into the furnace for it.

These next few years are the real turning point. If they are right about AI and robotic workforces, then it's checkmate--they don't need us anymore, and we're next for the furnace. If they're wrong... well, I don't know... Will there be any consequences? Maybe a few people lose a few percent of their net worth.

Initially I assumed that when the bubble burst, some VCs would go bust, Oracle would go bust, a few hyperscalers would take a significant haircut but carry on, and life would pretty much go on. However there's now sufficient dodgy AI-related debt making its way onto the debt markets that the bubble burst could be a lot messier, and it may be more than a few percent.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#182

Post by artyom »

To everyone who bought the "developer-friendly" Microsoft of VSCode fame from a few years ago: this is what they forever did, and forever will do.

This company has been pulling these tricks since the early 90s.

If you fell for this once again, there's nobody else to blame but yourself.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#183

Post by loufe »

te_chris wrote: post #92

Claude code and codex do this all the time too. Fucking annoying.

There's a large gap between what they do (same env var disables this since the beginning) vs Microsoft bucking it's way through AI coauthorship credit in a multi potential author china shop, though.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#184

Post by diego_sandoval »

rsynnott wrote: post #26

One fascinating thing about the whole AI phenomenon is how incredibly hostile it is to _standards_. Whether something works properly, or is ethical, or is true, no longer matters at all; all that matters is "pls use our AI". Microsoft spent literal decades rehabilitating their reputation. And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. And it's not just them. There was a time that Google care…

> Microsoft spent literal decades rehabilitating their reputation.

Mmm... I think I missed that part.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#185

Post by fragmede »

ryandrake wrote: post #108
krainboltgreene wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. It's the bourgeoisie dream: A means of production that also does the labor 24/7 and can't complain, infinitely spawnable. Theoretical slavery+, so of course they're throwing everything into the furnace for it.

These next few years are the real turning point. If they are right about AI and robotic workforces, then it's checkmate--they don't need us anymore, and we're next for the furnace. If they're wrong... well, I don't know... Will there be any consequences? Maybe a few people lose a few percent of their net worth.

A few percent of your net worth, when you're sitting on top of a pile of gold like a dragon on a yacht is one thing, but when you're a retiree, and you're on a fixed income, living off the proceeds from an annuity and a reverse mortgage, and inflation in all its forms is eating into the plan you had, and you don't have any backup, yes there will be consequences!

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#186

Post by sieve »

Paracompact wrote: post #130
sieve wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI-generated code should be clearly identified. Let AI autonomously produce code of a quality that I care about and I might consider giving it credit. I don't know how other people write code but I come up with an idea and use a multitude of LLMs to brainstorm a reasonably comprehensive spec that any reasonably competent person can read and produce a working program from, including a locally working Q2 quant of Qwe…

> Let artists and filmmakers start watermarking their output with the tools they use and I might reconsider my decision. They do, though, in the form of metadata.

Do Adobe or Arri or Red get authorship credit for the work their hardware and software do on projects? After all, artists would not be able to produce a single pixel without them. In a similar vein, you could make the argument that modern farming is sitting on your ass in your modern tractor while software handles most of the work. Does John Deere get rights over a quarter/half your harvest?

I am stuck between the luddites and "artisanal" coders on this one. LLMs are neither as smart/useful or as dumb/useless as people think. Unless your job involves producing useless garbage every single day, good software requires a lot of thought before the first line of code is even written. For those with serious domain knowledge, the thinking time can be compressed into minutes/hours rather than days/weeks it might take.

LLMs are a tool. You either pay for it or you use the freely available ones on your own hardware. As long as the output is directed by my thinking, the output belongs to me. If it were up to me, I would abolish IPR (and even permanent ownership of land) as a category altogether, but that is a different discussion.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#187

Post by pocksuppet »

rsynnott wrote: post #26

One fascinating thing about the whole AI phenomenon is how incredibly hostile it is to _standards_. Whether something works properly, or is ethical, or is true, no longer matters at all; all that matters is "pls use our AI". Microsoft spent literal decades rehabilitating their reputation. And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. And it's not just them. There was a time that Google care…

Has always been the case. Corporations hate standards and would rather lock you in except where market forces prevent them. It was a miracle we have something like the internet - and the government had to create it.

Microsoft's decade-long PR rehabilitation has worked wonders for them.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#188

Post by palata »

mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #146
storus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete takeover of technically incompetent management that feels like it can finally execute their ideas to the fullest instead of relying on those pesky swengs with their obstructions, complaints and problems. We'll soon get the management utopia everywhere.

Principal engineer balks at bad UX when the PM should know better (it's their job) 2023: Ah well I guess we can't do it 2025: you're fired. Hey kid we hired two weeks ago, implement bad idea please

To be fair, it was already done by bad managers long before.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#189

Post by jiveturkey »

polski-g wrote: post #131
yankohr wrote: post #84

This feels like the modern version of 'Sent from my iPhone' but much more invasive. Git commits are legal and technical records. Falsifying who authored a piece of code just to pump up AI usage stats is a huge breach of trust and it is disappointing to see Microsoft prioritize branding over the integrity of the developer's log. I expect my IDE to record what happened, not what the marketing department wants people to…

Good point. That fake commit addendum means that the entire commit contents would not be under copyright protection. AI generated code is not currently copyrightable.

It doesn't mean that. A Co-Authored-By header isn't a legal signature or legal assertion of AI generated code.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#190

Post by brazukadev »

mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #146
storus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete takeover of technically incompetent management that feels like it can finally execute their ideas to the fullest instead of relying on those pesky swengs with their obstructions, complaints and problems. We'll soon get the management utopia everywhere.

Principal engineer balks at bad UX when the PM should know better (it's their job) 2023: Ah well I guess we can't do it 2025: you're fired. Hey kid we hired two weeks ago, implement bad idea please

That's how I got my first opportunity 20 years ago
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