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Copilot edited an ad into my PR

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211–220 of 704 posts

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs aren't known for being super deterministic.

LLMs are determistic. Just like everything else computers are capable of doing. Commercial front-ends just hide the random seed parameters.

It's not usefully deterministic in the way computers usually are. Sensitively identical input can still lead to wildly different outputs even if all randomness is crushed out.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#212

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=%…

> Looks like MS thinks it's a "tip" rather than an ad.

No, they don't.

> edit: I think it's an ad too. Everyone would think so, except for MS.

You think a company with a $2.65 trillion market cap and an army of marketing professionals doesn't realize that what they're doing here is an ad, and didn't implement it intentionally as such?

That's not even remotely plausible. In the quantum multiverse which contains all physically realizable possibilities, that isn't one of them.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#213

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=%…

A bit like "suggested apps" in the start menu. It's "suggestions" and certainly not paid ads.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Claude: As I have unticked the "Help improve Claude" checkbox, I was under the impression that Claude did not do this. https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/10023555-how-do-you-u...

You can opt out with all three (Codex, Claude, Copilot) except for Gemini

Last time I checked Codex didn't have that option for $20 plan

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#215

Assuming this isn't a hoax, this seems like a huge, probably unintentional, mistake by MS. If they genuinely implemented something like this, whatever they made from new customers via ads couldn't possibly make up for the loss of good faith with developers and businesses. I suppose if it's real we'll see more reports soon, and maybe a mea culpa.

MS burning trust with people to do some stupid marketing is on the fewer assumptions side of Occam's razor.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#216
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I wonder how long GitHub as a platform will be there as a viable option. It will be there for as long as you (and everyone else) keep using it.

The desire for free stuff is one of the most effective psychological hacks there is.

The large majority of the dystopian web, like Gmail, Facebook, etc. depend on that.

People who avoid e.g. Github, Gmail, Facebook, Xitter, etc. out of concern for broader principles will always be minor outliers.

Xitter is one of the best examples. Everyone knows it's compromised, owned by an dangerously antisocial person who's actively working at multiple levels to make the lives of everyone else on Earth worse, yet very few have stopped using it.

The saying "There's no ethical consumption under capitalism" is far too weak. It should me more like, there are no ethics under capitalism.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#217

I was recently running Copilot CLI in a sandbox on autopilot mode and it kept overriding git config to put only "GitHub Copilot" as commit author instead of my name. Strongly worded instructions weren't helping, I had to resort to the permission system to change this behavior. I wonder if this is consistent with their terms of service. I mean, maybe they DO take all the responsibility for the code I generate and push…

It's a setting that causes an extra prompt to be placed into the system prompt.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#220

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=%…

This tip/ad discussion reminds me of the equally idiotic and misleading Facebook post types. Instead of the correctly labeling all ads as, well, ads, Facebook have some ads called "suggested for you", some are completely unlabeled with only a "follow" button to start following, some ads are labeled as "sponsored" etc. I think they are doing this to evade legal limitations they might have otherwise. Last time I used Facebook it showed me 25 ads in a row (I counted), without any of my hundreds of follows with active feeds. Truly insane company.
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