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Copilot edited an ad into my PR

notes.zachmanson.com

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Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#631

Post by polski-g »

transcriptase wrote: post #273
Gigachad wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microslop for a while now seems to be testing exactly how much you can abuse the user before they move somewhere else. Windows is a prime example. Everything is ads, tracking, popups, annoyances, etc. They have got away with it for a while because a lot of users have largely been stuck, but they are in real trouble now with Apple providing meaningful competition.

Yeah but at least a dozen Microsoft employees went on a seemingly scripted blitz on X about how they’re ready to start listening to feedback and… * checks notes * Only have copilot shoehorned into most things instead of everything. And some shit about windows developers which isn’t exactly going to fix the glaring issues with the OS itself.

They literally broke 40yr standard keyboard layouts on laptops by replacing right alt buttons with their bullshit AI button.

Are they going to fix hardware they've already sold? On every OEM?

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#632

Post by skywhopper »

jffry wrote: post #261
timrogers wrote: post #250

Tim from the Copilot coding agent team here. We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again for future PRs. We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent. The goal was to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow. But hearing the feedback here, and on reflection, this was the wrong judgement call. W…

> We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent If the PR is wholly authored by Copilot I get the spirit of this, although maybe not the best implementation. And "tips" like this that look like an ad for a product _definitely_ feel like an enshittification betrayal of the user, even if it was a genuine recommendation and not a paid advertisement. In the OP's situation, where where Copilot w…

Nah, PR text is a completely inappropriate place for a tip to appear. A PR description should describe the contents of the PR, not include unrelated, unsolicited advice. It’d be like submitting a bug fix, and saying “this PR fixes bug X, and also, have you considered using a different linter in this project?” Completely inappropriate.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#633

Post by itomato »

g051051 wrote: post #301
tyleo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels a bit threatening. Just want to call it out. I also disagree with the decision but I respect that someone came forward and took responsibility. That helps build our shared understanding of what happened. It’s hard and not something we should discourage.

How is that "threatening"? Genuinely curious.

And why are they so “threatened”? Are they in the Core AI Org?

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#634

Post by anthonyrstevens »

frereubu wrote: post #174
esperent wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it being a "tip" or "ad" is exactly the same. What I mean is that even if I take that at face value and accept that it's not an ad, and I can just about see from a certain level of corporate brainwashing how one could believe that, it's still completely unacceptable.

Calling it a "tip" is definitely just a semantic trick to make it slightly less easy to frame a negative response and galvanise opinion against the practise. Reminds me a bit of confirmation shaming (which, now I think about it, I haven't seen in a while) where you're made to click a button that says something like "No, I don't want an amazing 15% off my next order by signing up to your email list".

I this a similar thing? Apple web signin doesn't let you easily choose SMS 2FA; you have to click "I can't get to my devices right now" first before you can send yourself a text message. I always resent them for making me lie, because although my devices ARE nearby (ish), my phone is always, like RIGHT THERE.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#636

Post by TheScaryOne »

rchaud wrote: post #558
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has a history of monopoly behavior I just want to note that the case you link to was 25 years ago. The number of people working at Microsoft at the time who are still working there today is very small.

The Microsoft that was prosecuted for monopoly behaviour 25 years ago is definitely not the same Microsoft that owns: - Github - LinkedIn - Activision Blizzard - Xbox - Azure, Sharepoint and Teams w/Copilot embedded everywhere - major stake in OpenAI - a multibillion dollar ad product portfolio (LinkedIn ads, Bing Ads)

After being told to not integrate Internet Explorer into the OS, they changed the name to EDGE and did it anyway? With the added excuse that it now compromises most of the file explorer functionality, too?

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#637

Post by TheScaryOne »

Aerroon wrote: post #304
transcriptase wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but at least a dozen Microsoft employees went on a seemingly scripted blitz on X about how they’re ready to start listening to feedback and… * checks notes * Only have copilot shoehorned into most things instead of everything. And some shit about windows developers which isn’t exactly going to fix the glaring issues with the OS itself.

> Yeah but at least a dozen Microsoft employees went on a seemingly scripted blitz on X about how they’re ready to start listening to feedback and… So what was the purpose of all that telemetry they collected then? Because it doesn't seem to have made the OS like what the users want it to be.

Do you hate the "Ribbon" UI that got forced into everything in Win8+?

That's what telemetry was used for. Every advanced user turned that off when they gave us the option, and now we have every UI on the computer designed for Grandma.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#638

Post by naikrovek »

manmal wrote: post #597
naikrovek wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t want copilot to work on your PRs, don’t ask it to.

I would expect it to comment, not alter the code?

It won’t unless you ask it to. It will review your PRs and it will create PRs if you don’t turn those things off, I believe, but it won’t edit or modify any PR.

My employer pushes copilot quite hard and I’ve never seen copilot do anything without me telling it to act in some way.

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#639

Post by jacobgkau »

yarn_ wrote: post #473
jacobgkau wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs can make mistakes in different ways than humans tend to. Think "confidently wrong human throwing flags up with their entire approach" vs. "confidently wrong LLM writing convincing-looking code that misunderstands or ignores things under the surface." Outside of your one personal project, it can also benefit you to understand the current tendencies and limitations of AI agents, either to consider whether they're…

Sure, the point about LLM "mistakes" etc being harder to detect is valid, although I'm not entirely sure how to compare this with human hard to detect mistakes. If anything I find LLM code shortcomings often a bit easier to spot because a lot of the time they're just uneeded dependencies, useless comments, useless replication of logic, etc. This is where testing come into play too and I'm definitely reviewing your te…

> If anything I find LLM code shortcomings often a bit easier to spot because a lot of the time they're just uneeded dependencies, useless comments, useless replication of logic, etc.

By this logic, it's useful to know whether something was LLM-generated or not because if it was, you can more quickly come to the conclusion that it's LLM weirdness and short-circuit your review there. If it's human code (or if you don't know), then you have to assume there might be a reason for whatever you're looking at, and may spend more time looking into it before coming to the conclusion that it's simple nonsense.

> This is also kind of a moot point either way, because everyone can just trivially hide the fact that they used LLMs if they want to.

Maybe, but this thread's about someone who said "I'd like to be able to review commits and see which were substantially bot-written and which were mostly human," and you asking why. It seems we've uncovered several feasible answers to your question of "why would you want that?"

Re: Copilot edited an ad into my PR

#640

Post by nazgul17 »

timrogers wrote: post #250

Tim from the Copilot coding agent team here. We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again for future PRs. We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent. The goal was to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow. But hearing the feedback here, and on reflection, this was the wrong judgement call. W…

> The goal was to help developers

Is Microsoft receiving payments for these?

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