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Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

fast.ai

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Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#61

Post by exdsq »

foxes wrote: post #10

How does copilot fair in a language where correctness or at least well soundness is more transparent, for example Haskell (eg at least making sure all the types are correct, actual logic on the other hand seems harder, but maybe the declarative style helps)? I imagine in a less strict language you can generate garbage more easily.

Building on this idea, if you could design a type-level program with Haskell (including some liquid Haskell to add further type invariants) it'd be awesome for something like Copilot to fill in the blanks. Seems easier than program synthesis!

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#62

Post by truth_ »

toomanyducks wrote: post #18
foxes wrote: post #10

How does copilot fair in a language where correctness or at least well soundness is more transparent, for example Haskell (eg at least making sure all the types are correct, actual logic on the other hand seems harder, but maybe the declarative style helps)? I imagine in a less strict language you can generate garbage more easily.

Some of the examples given wouldn't even run, as far as I know. Copilot writing Haskell/Rust/ would probably just fail to compile. I know very, very little about AI, but, like the OP said, it'll reproduce the traits of its training distribution. If the traits don't map on to the domain-specifics of the type ssytem, the traits don't map on, and the code fails. Generating garbage the compiles is harder, but generating…

Yeah, I chanced upon an official livestream by GH showcasing Copilot, and it was performing very poorly on Rust.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#63

Post by tchalla »

jph00 wrote: post #59

Hi all, Jeremy Howard here, author of the article. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about language models and program synthesis, Copilot, etc.

Thanks Jeremy! Where have language model(s) had the most useful for practical applications in terms of generated text? In terms of practical applications, I specifically mean the inclusion of a language model(s) has made life net better.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#64

Post by kangalioo »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #33

Copilot was made from stealing code on Github, ignoring the licenses set on repos such as e.g GPLv2, using AI as a trick to license-launder code. Copilot has announced their plans to become a paid service. So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

While I see how Copilot's data gathering can be considered unethical, in the end I ask myself, does it matter? Would it have been of any concrete advantage to open-source programmers if Copilot hadn't used their source code? I can't think of any

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#65

Post by fraktl »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #33

Copilot was made from stealing code on Github, ignoring the licenses set on repos such as e.g GPLv2, using AI as a trick to license-launder code. Copilot has announced their plans to become a paid service. So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

So what you're saying is that you have the right to host your code for free, to download it from GitHub for free (no bandwith paid) and to behave like new-age Robin Hood when it comes to being offended because the very same company use that code - not to run it, but analyze it. Stop being entitled, it's seriously hard to participate in any kind of progress with offendable cauliflowers like you.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#66

Post by peterthehacker »

> Given this, why does Copilot write such crappy code?

> The reason is because of how language models work. They show how, on average, most people write. They don’t have any sense of what’s correct or what’s good. Most code on GitHub is (by software standards) pretty old, and (by definition) written by average programmers.

Does Copilot apply any project quality filters before training? A small minority of public repos on GitHub are awesome projects that are popular and maintained, while the rest are forgotten experiments, side projects and interview answers.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#68

Post by tluyben2 »

kangalioo wrote: post #64
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #33

Copilot was made from stealing code on Github, ignoring the licenses set on repos such as e.g GPLv2, using AI as a trick to license-launder code. Copilot has announced their plans to become a paid service. So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

While I see how Copilot's data gathering can be considered unethical, in the end I ask myself, does it matter? Would it have been of any concrete advantage to open-source programmers if Copilot hadn't used their source code? I can't think of any

Well, if you chose a viral license like the GPL, you do not do that to have your code and knowledge being reused in a non viral (possibly closed source) licensed solution. So this is a fundamental issue at least GPL minded authors will definitely mind and fight against.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#69

Post by zaptheimpaler »

fraktl wrote: post #65
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #33

Copilot was made from stealing code on Github, ignoring the licenses set on repos such as e.g GPLv2, using AI as a trick to license-launder code. Copilot has announced their plans to become a paid service. So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

So what you're saying is that you have the right to host your code for free, to download it from GitHub for free (no bandwith paid) and to behave like new-age Robin Hood when it comes to being offended because the very same company use that code - not to run it, but analyze it. Stop being entitled, it's seriously hard to participate in any kind of progress with offendable cauliflowers like you.

No I am happy to pay for it, and have paid for github in the past in fact. That doesn’t mean they can change the deal on what free hosting means with out any notice or method to opt out. Paid user’s public repos were not spared from Copilot either.

Re: Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?

#70

Post by onion2k »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #33

Copilot was made from stealing code on Github, ignoring the licenses set on repos such as e.g GPLv2, using AI as a trick to license-launder code. Copilot has announced their plans to become a paid service. So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company.

This is just business as usual for tech companies though. How many Silicon Valley businesses built their products on top of open source projects without contributing much back? Heck.. how many YC companies do that? When you see vital open source projects like OpenSSL struggling to raise more than a few tens of thousands in donations (it only continues through OSF contracting work), and libraries like Svelte barely clearing $30k, when you know they're used by Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc you can't be that surprised when companies do the same thing on a larger scale.

The entire tech industry and all the multi-trillion and multi-billion dollar unicorn businesses that have billionaire founders and millionaire developers working at them fall under the description of "would not be possible without public, open-source code" and "will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data."

We can't reasonably claim there's anything wrong with a company building a product on the back of open source work when literally all of us do that as well. The only difference with Copilot is scale.

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