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GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

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Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#52

Microsoft is seriously the worst offender in shoving AI down everyone's throats. I'm pro-AI adoption but the way Microsoft distastefully forces Copilot into everything is how you get people to hate AI. I’m guessing product teams are told by upper management to AI-fy every product they own. Teams are then rushed to just get something out there whether they make sense or not.

> Microsoft is seriously the worst offender in shoving AI down everyone's throats.

The worst, or just ahead of the curve? Because you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think every other AI company or company integrating AI into their products won’t be using it as an advertising delivery vehicle.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#53
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of amazing technology has been invented just for the purpose of killing people. It's nothing new. Humans are monkeys that like to kill other monkeys and no amount of civilization will change that.

It certainly won't change with that kind of attitude. Don't you want to live a peaceful life and be free from your baser instincts? I believe most people do, and if they don't, the mission of those who have education and means should be to show the way in that direction, instead of shrugging off the worst things and excusing them on "monkeys", which IMO is insulting to monkeys.

Of course, we all want to live peaceful lives and be free from our baser instincts, but the entire society that allows you to live a "peaceful life" is based on exploitation and war. Just because you don't see it at home doesn't mean you don't profit/benefit from human violence and exploitation.

As for my comment on "monkeys":

1. Larger primates like chimpanzees are known predators that hunt and consume smaller monkeys, specifically targeting babies

2. In the famous Gombe Chimpanzee War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War), a once-unified community split into two factions; over four years, one group systematically hunted down and killed every male member of the other.

3. In captive or introduced settings, groups may relentlessly bully "outsiders" who do not know the social norms, preventing them from eating or resting.

4. Non-lactating females may steal an infant from its mother and refuse to give it back, holding it until the baby dies of starvation or dehydration.

"Insulting to monkeys" is only an idea when you anthromorphize monkeys from the actual animals they are to something like Rafiki from Lion King. Nothing is insulting to monkeys because they don't understand the meaning of insult or care about it. They're raw animals and so are human beings.

If you look at the world around you today and think "yes, this is the result of people wanting to live a peaceful life" then I would say you're not being realistic.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#54
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly won't change with that kind of attitude. Don't you want to live a peaceful life and be free from your baser instincts? I believe most people do, and if they don't, the mission of those who have education and means should be to show the way in that direction, instead of shrugging off the worst things and excusing them on "monkeys", which IMO is insulting to monkeys.

The reflex to assign our morally wrong behaviour to the animal part in us is quite ironic. I just don't see jellyfish building concentration camps.

Yeah they just use their tentacles to catch prey and bring it into their body cavity, where they feed on and defecate out of the same opening. Maybe they don't because they lack the intellect to do so, not because they have any sense of morality.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#55
post #4

Calling advertisements "product tips" as if everybody is too stupid to understand what that means. They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indistinguishable from magic and then use it to deliver ads and - sorry about the tangent - kill people. This really is the quote of the century: > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads What a waste.

I don’t think the quote is particularly fair. You could just as easily see it as the best minds are building huge amounts of amazing, free technology and need a way to pay for it.

For every microsecond level ad auction broker there’s a free Android update, cat video platform enhancement, calendar app feature, or type checked scripting language release.

HFT on the other hand — now there’s a tech black hole!

[edited to add What have the Romans ever done for us?, below]

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#56
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it sad that while technological progress is seen almost as a given by virtually everyone, moral progress is often not even an aspiration

Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have…

Small correction: there was one very publicized school bombing with a lot of casualties, but there's more than one bombed school.

The US and Israel have bombed several schools, hospitals, and civil servants' offices, and residential buildings. I read HRANA's report on the war every morning. [1] It's a quick read, they are a reliable Iranian opposition source (now based in the US).

Each day, there are multiple strikes on civilian infrastructure. No matter how precise they are, they are still war crimes.

[1] https://www.en-hrana.org/

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#57
post #4

Calling advertisements "product tips" as if everybody is too stupid to understand what that means. They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indistinguishable from magic and then use it to deliver ads and - sorry about the tangent - kill people. This really is the quote of the century: > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads What a waste.

A lot of amazing technology has been invented just for the purpose of killing people. It's nothing new. Humans are monkeys that like to kill other monkeys and no amount of civilization will change that.

This is where incentives strike us once again.

Unlike in any other pursuit, in war, governments have at least some incentive to be efficient, lest they be outcompeted by the other side.

In peacetime science, all they care about is crossing the is, dashing the ts, and making sure that no icky ethics violations are likely to cause a PR scandal and get somebody ousted from their post.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#59
> We identified a programming logic issue with a GitHub Copilot coding agent tip that surfaced in the wrong context within a pull request comment. We have removed agent tips from pull request comments moving forward.

Why does this read as they are saying it was a mistake ? Because it absolutely wasn't, and it will absolutely happen again, maybe just less obvious next time.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#60
post #32

> Hearing feedback from the community following Manson's post and the kerfuffle it generated, Rogers said, has helped him realize that "on reflection," letting Copilot make changes to PRs written by a human without their knowledge "was the wrong judgement call." Thankfully, they need the community feedback to realize it was wrong. It was so hard to guess it was wrong without the feedback! It's good to know these peop…

This is corporate PR speak 101, external or internal doesn't matter. None of that sentence is true and everybody knows that. Its just a theatre since other peers are dancing the same dance and they can't stick out as too rough or honest or whatever. Of course they realized this very well from the start, weighted risk of backfiring, reward for meeting some fucked up quarterly or yearly objective set by higher ups and…

I think a CEO literally saying "I fucked up" on a corporate blog could genuinely be an interesting hiring tactic these days. I'd work for that guy.
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