Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 346 posts

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#211

Post by NewsaHackO »

homebrewer wrote: post #83
martinwoodward wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t previously opt-in. Previously we didn’t do any training on usage. However as other products have come into the market they do train on usage. We’ve been training on our internal usage for just over a year and have seen some major improvements. For details see of the types of improvements we’ve seen from training on our internal usage check out this article: https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/cop…

You can always ask your parent company to train on their usage. I hear they have incredibly massive codebases: Windows, Office, MSSQL, which stay out of training data for some reason. I thought neural nets never repeat the training data verbatim, and copyright does not pass through them, so what's the problem?

How do you know that isn't already the case?

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#214

Post by IcyWindows »

homebrewer wrote: post #83
martinwoodward wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t previously opt-in. Previously we didn’t do any training on usage. However as other products have come into the market they do train on usage. We’ve been training on our internal usage for just over a year and have seen some major improvements. For details see of the types of improvements we’ve seen from training on our internal usage check out this article: https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/cop…

You can always ask your parent company to train on their usage. I hear they have incredibly massive codebases: Windows, Office, MSSQL, which stay out of training data for some reason. I thought neural nets never repeat the training data verbatim, and copyright does not pass through them, so what's the problem?

Who said they don't?

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#216

Post by gchamonlive »

chistev wrote: post #109
miohtama wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft would never do this (-:

I don't like when people make sarcastic remarks and sign off in a way that indicates it was sarcasm. It kills it for me. Lol. Like using that /s or using that smiling emoji sign you used. A good joke would land even if some other people miss it because of the text format. "Microsoft would never do this" would have landed for me.

Oh seems like we've got a joke connoisseur in our midst, ah yes very distinguished

:)

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#217

Post by Lio »

cj wrote: post #17
kepano wrote: post #12

I'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)

An enterprise licence won't save you, Google, Microsoft, et al have happily been breaking copyright laws for years.

If the publishing industry can't win a case against the AI firms then you don't stand a chance when you finally find out they've been training on your private data the whole time.

They can tell you one thing and do the opposite and there's effectively nothing you can do about it. You'd be a fool to trust them.

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#218

Post by _pdp_ »

tptacek wrote: post #96
jffry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unnecessarily splitting hairs. > interaction data—specifically inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context [...] will be used to train and improve our AI models So using Copilot in a private repo, where lots of that repo will be used as context for Copilot, means GitHub will be using your private repo as training data when they were not before.

No it isn't. Most people don't use Copilot, so this term change won't effect most people. You can reasonably be unhappy about it anyways (or unreasonably still be using Copilot in 2026), but it's still ultra-useful information for them to add to the discussion.

Copilot, or "chat with Copilot" is a button that is available on every page right next to the search bar.

I don't have to be a Copilot user to click on it.

This change is malicious, and it doesn't only affect Copilot users. It affects everyone on the platform!

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#219

Post by input_sh »

pistoriusp wrote: post #152
tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Most people don't use Copilot, so this term change won't effect most people. You can reasonably be unhappy about it anyways (or unreasonably still be using Copilot in 2026), but it's still ultra-useful information for them to add to the discussion.

I don't use copilot, but somehow was subscribed... I probably clicked something long ago and it just remained active.

They "gift you" a free standard plan if you have above a certain (non-transparent) level of stars, I don't think you can even disable your "subscription" if you get it for free.

Re: If you don't opt out by Apr 24 GitHub will train on your private repos

#220

Post by qaadika »

vscode-rest wrote: post #190
qaadika wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/updates-to-gi... > Should you decide to participate in this program, the interaction data we may collect and leverage includes: > - Outputs accepted or modified by you > - Inputs sent to GitHub Copilot, including code snippets shown to the model > - Code context surrounding your cursor position > - Comments and documentation you write > - File names, repository structu…

Do you use copilot?

First response: It doesn't matter if I use copilot right now. It matters if I will ever use copilot in the future. Opting-out is future-focused. What if I said "no, I don't use copilot, so I don't need to opt out", then a year from now start using copilot, completely forgetting about this whole debacle? That's the evil of opt-out. My inaction only benefits them, never me.

Second response: Maybe? I press the little button to auto-generate commit titles and messages that showed up in my Github Desktop. Does that count?

I'm asking sincerely. I don't "use Copilot" as in using it in VS Code or while writing code, so I'm honestly not sure if I am.

Post reply on HN