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GitHub Copilot

copilot.github.com

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Re: GitHub Copilot

#141

Post by Iv »

not2b wrote: post #71
dekhn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, a model trained on text covered by a license is not itself covered by the license, unless it explicitly copies the text (you cannot copyright a "style").

But it actually is explicitly copying the text. That's how it works. The training data are massive, and you will get long strings of code that are pulled directly from that training data. It isn't giving you just the style. It may be mashing together several different code examples taking some text from each. That's called "derivative work".

Google Books actually displays full pages of copyrighted works Google did not license. It was considered legal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....

Re: GitHub Copilot

#142

Post by fulafel »

Ensorceled wrote: post #123
fulafel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some ethical problems that could emerge from the box? Maybe unfair competition from having very good tools compared to other programmers, or havin irresponsibly shallow understanding of what the produced code does?

> What are some ethical problems that could emerge from the box? Being put out of job by an AI trained on your own code? It's really the same ethical problem of all automation ... and will be as long as we need a job to fulfill basic needs like food, housing and medical care.

I wonder if HLL compiler authors had fears about this back when writing assembly and machine code was the norm.

But good point about the ambivalent result of eliminating busywork. Food, housing and medical care is available in most western countries for people who choose to not get a job... I think the social status problem and guilt of freeriding are also big factors preventing prople from living more leisurely lives in these countries.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#143

Post by natfriedman »

jonas_kgomo wrote: post #93
natfriedman wrote: post #60

Hi HN, we've been building GitHub Copilot together with the incredibly talented team at OpenAI for the last year, and we're so excited to be able to show it off today. Hundreds of developers are using it every day internally, and the most common reaction has been the head exploding emoji. If the technical preview goes well, we'll plan to scale this up as a paid product at some point in the future.

This is obviously controversial, since we are thinking about how this could displace a large portion of developers. How do you see Copilot being more augmentative than disruptive to the developer ecosystem? Also, how you see it different from regular code completion tools like tabnine.

We think that software development is entering its third wave of productivity change. The first was the creation of tools like compilers, debuggers, garbage collectors, and languages that made developers more productive. The second was open source where a global community of developers came together to build on each other's work. The third revolution will be the use of AI in coding.

The problems we spend our days solving may change. But there will always be problems for humans to solve.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#145

Post by verst »

natfriedman wrote: post #60

Hi HN, we've been building GitHub Copilot together with the incredibly talented team at OpenAI for the last year, and we're so excited to be able to show it off today. Hundreds of developers are using it every day internally, and the most common reaction has been the head exploding emoji. If the technical preview goes well, we'll plan to scale this up as a paid product at some point in the future.

I have been using this - for example working in Go on Dapr (dapr.io) or in Python on one of its SDKs.

I love it. So often the code suggestions accurately anticipate what I planned to do next.

It's especially fun to write a comment or doc string and then see Copilot create a block of code perfectly matching your comment.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#147

Post by serf »

tux1968 wrote: post #125
jonas_kgomo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is obviously controversial, since we are thinking about how this could displace a large portion of developers. How do you see Copilot being more augmentative than disruptive to the developer ecosystem? Also, how you see it different from regular code completion tools like tabnine.

How many jobs have developers helped displace in business and industry? I don't think it's controversial that we become fair game for that same automation process we've been leading.

>How many jobs have developers helped displace in business and industry? I don't think it's controversial that we become fair game for that same automation process we've been leading.

historically when has that sort of 'tit-for-tat' style of argument ever been helpful?

the correct approach would be "we've observed first hand the problems that we've cause for society, how can we avoid creating such problems for any person in the future?"

It might seem self-serving, and it is, but 'two wrongs don't make a right'. Let's try to fix such problems rather than serving our sentence as condemned individuals.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#148

Post by SCLeo »

natfriedman wrote: post #107
Asmod4n wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might this end up putting GPL code into projects with an incompatible license?

It shouldn't do that, and we are taking steps to avoid reciting training data in the output: https://copilot.github.com/#faq-does-github-copilot-recite-c... https://docs.github.com/en/early-access/github/copilot/resea... In terms of the permissibility of training on public code, the jurisprudence here – broadly relied upon by the machine learning community – is that training ML models is fair use. We are certain this…

> ...the jurisprudence here – broadly relied upon by the machine learning community – is that training ML models is fair use.

To be honest, I doubt that. Maybe I am special, but if I am releasing some code under GPL, I really don't want it to be used in training a closed source model, which will be used in a closed source software generating code for closed source projects.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#149

Post by theden »

brown9-2 wrote: post #135
theden wrote: post #88

Calling it now, there will be a "Copilot considered harmful" post. If you need to go through the suggested code to ensure it's correct, you may as well write it yourself? If you glance at it and it looks about right, you can potentially overlook bugs or edge cases, you'll lose confidence in your own code since you didn't properly conceptualise it yourself. Potentially for newer developers it robs them of active exper…

All of the same can be said for copy-and-pasting code you find in a tutorial in Google search results or in a Stack Overflow answer. This just seems to be automating that process even further.

Those extra steps can be valuable, since you'll have to work to even find the right code to copy/paste, and the context which it's in can teach you something.

Even something as simple as copying from the docs, it's usually a good place to signal deprecation, use-case applicability, API updates etc. you lose all that with the automation.

Oftentimes there's also discussion around a solution, and in many ways can swing one's decision on whether to use the code or not.

Re: GitHub Copilot

#150

Post by crazygringo »

theden wrote: post #88

Calling it now, there will be a "Copilot considered harmful" post. If you need to go through the suggested code to ensure it's correct, you may as well write it yourself? If you glance at it and it looks about right, you can potentially overlook bugs or edge cases, you'll lose confidence in your own code since you didn't properly conceptualise it yourself. Potentially for newer developers it robs them of active exper…

> If you need to go through the suggested code to ensure it's correct, you may as well write it yourself?

Not really. People are generally far faster at reading something and evaluating whether it's correct, than at writing something. In the same way it's faster to read a book than to write one.

Not to mention the time it takes typing, fixing typos, etc.

So this could genuinely be a huge timesaver if it helpful enough of the time.

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