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VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

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Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#691

Post by frm88 »

outside1234 wrote: post #101
krainboltgreene wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. It's the bourgeoisie dream: A means of production that also does the labor 24/7 and can't complain, infinitely spawnable. Theoretical slavery+, so of course they're throwing everything into the furnace for it.

BUT it is a trap: https://arxiv.org/html/2603.20617v1

Automation tax solves all the problems? Seriously? The tax would go to retraining programs, according to the linked paper, so that workers can be reabsorbed into the workforce. Undiscussed conditio sine qua non: the economy has room for additional workforce, the government - as the distributor of said tax - has implemented sufficient legislation into social networks to ensure the tax goes to these programs and not another pointless war or subsidies for agriculture or tax relief for the rich.

This paper proposes a solution for which the framework/base is missing.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#692

Post by lppedd »

sinpif wrote: post #687
saghm wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is honestly the most concerning part of all of this. You're saying you knew that this exact bug was present up front and still decided to release it? This basically invalidates the entire premise that it was an innocent mistake. It's impossible for me to believe that you actually thought that people wouldn't care about 100% of their commits being attributed to Copilot even when it was never used. Either you're m…

Agreed, this approach feels like folks at Microsoft still feel they have enough karma to burn. It's way past that.

I think there is a "ship fast" component here that should be adjusted. Product Management introduced weekly "stable" releases in March, no matter the content.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#693

Post by Pay08 »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #667
visarga wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes the bite less damaging - if everyone hax "Co-authored-by AI" in their commits less shame for it, just a normal fact of life now, not a sign of low quality.

It's either neutral useless information, or a sign of low quality. It's never positive. Its a sign that the developer didn't pay attention to what they committed. Like a spelling error, or forgetting to run the linter. If the IDE added "written with vscode" i would be equally furious.

According to the link, the message changing isn't visible to the user in any way (besides running a git log after the fact).

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#694

Post by albert_e »

Question -- is this a general feature that detects which AI agent was used to edit your code (Claude, Codex, etc) and inserts THAT agent's name into the commit message's trailer. Or this pnly detects and inserts (Github) Copilot as a co-author?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#695

Post by Lyrkan »

dmitriv wrote: post #538
unchar1 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the reasoning for this change?

There are customers who would like to see attribution on changes where AI contributed (companies, users, etc). True, that's not everyone, but you can query our repo for the issues for which this feature was implemented. The rationale I suppose is those customers what to be more careful with code that was contributed by AI. HTH

I don't see how this would actually help. If people don't want to disclose they used AI they will just strip the message from the commit.

Maybe those customers should just be more selective with the people they allow to contribute to their project?

Also, this kind of message doesn't even bring valuable info: it doesn't explain how the AI was used (could be 99% vibe-coding, or just a quick "Please review current changes" + minor fixes at the end?), which model was used, etc. Like other commenters here I can't see this as anything else than a marketing push for Copilot.

Don't take it personally though, you are probably not the one that should be taking the heat since the change was directly pushed by your product manager.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#696

Post by watwut »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #654
pletnes wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They asked developers to help them improve windows battery life on laptops, competing against chromebooks and macbooks. The AI gigawatts are all in data centers. They never cared for the environment (in this way, at least).

Windows still asks you to reduce the refresh rate of your monitor from 240Hz to 60Hz in order to save the environment.

Mine dont

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#697

Post by snet0 »

dmitriv wrote: post #268

I am the person who approved this PR and would like to acknowledge and apologize for the mistake of turning this feature on by default without sufficient upfront validation. There was no ill intent by evil corporation, but rather a desire to support functionality that some customers expect of VS Code w.r.t. AI-generated code. As folks mentioned here - many similar tools do this as well. Obviously, it should not be on…

Why are you taking the fall and not the PM who authored the change (and submitted a PR with an uninformative title and no comment) and, I'm assuming, plays a role in managing the project?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#698

Post by neilv »

Findecanor wrote: post #413
neilv wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google claims that their browser is called Chrome because of an association with fast cars FWIW, before Google Chrome, Firefox was originally Firebird (changed for name collision reasons), and Mozilla had broken off the rest of the Netscape-ish "communications suite" into Thunderbird, both arguably named after cars. Besides the use of chrome by Netscape/Mozilla that you mention, roughly around that time I heard it…

Between Netscape Navigator and Firefox, their web browser was called simply "Mozilla". It supported GUI themes in XML with images which were officially called "Chrome". Mozilla also hosted user-contributed themes on a web site called "Chrome Zone". The browser was considered slow and bloated however, and when Firefox came, its lack of theme support was perceived as part of it having been de-bloated.

I might vaguely recall Mozilla being in an easter egg or alternate throbber in a Netscape browser, and my impression was that it had been an internal codename at Netscape which was then adopted for the open source project.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#699

Post by jaskerr »

rcbdev wrote: post #514
rsynnott wrote: post #26

One fascinating thing about the whole AI phenomenon is how incredibly hostile it is to _standards_. Whether something works properly, or is ethical, or is true, no longer matters at all; all that matters is "pls use our AI". Microsoft spent literal decades rehabilitating their reputation. And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. And it's not just them. There was a time that Google care…

GMAIL in the web is so shitty, I literally switched over to another provider. I don't know how anyone can use them as their webmail client. You can't make sense of longer mail threads with forwards, answers etc. in between - it becomes an unreadable hot mess.

Would you tell us which provider/client you switched to?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#700

Post by singpolyma3 »

ravenstine wrote: post #512
storus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete takeover of technically incompetent management that feels like it can finally execute their ideas to the fullest instead of relying on those pesky swengs with their obstructions, complaints and problems. We'll soon get the management utopia everywhere.

100% This AI boom is not a boom because its good for developers or users. It's a boom because it's a management dream; the promise of pumping up growth while reducing expensive workforce is simply too good for them to not throw decades of platitudes and "best practices" out the window. When people point out where AI fails, they're not seeing past the end of their nose. They don't realize they're not the real customer…

To be fair, most of our industry is so stupendously bad at executing that you can keep growth and save costs by simply laying people off. No AI required.
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