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GitHub Community Discussions: Past year's top 2 requests are to disable Copilot

78 points by carodgers 1y ago

cespare 1y ago
I had to sort by "Top: last year" to see two Copilot-related issues at the top. They are: - https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/159749 https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/159749 - https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/169148 https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/169148
- carodgers 1y ago
  Thank you. I included the url params when I made the post, but it appears that HN strips these.
rcleveng 1y ago
:shocked_pikachu_face: In all seriousness, I was using a different LLM with vscode, and it still kept popping up dialogs about copilot. This is after I had uninstalled the copilot extensions (or at least I tried to uninstall it all). I'd love for the IDE's like cursor to be able to be an extension on vscode and such, but this type of thing makes it super hard for that to be a reality.
noobermin 1y ago
Can people currently in these companies tell me why the companies are forcing people to use AI? I understand offering as an option, the constant forced opt-ins is leading to obvious fatigue...
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  To grow revenue. If it’s an option, it is less likely to be bought versus including it and increasing prices to get towards growth goals. Tech wants the growth, companies consuming this want to be able to do more with less people. The result is the current experience. (TLDR line go up)
- georgemcbay 1y ago
  Can't make a bubble without generating a lot of froth.
- feverzsj 1y ago
  To attract more investment, because it's the hottest trend. They don't care if it actually works and profits.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  They have invested huge amounts in the AI bubble which they have to justify to shareholders and / or investors. The easiest way to do this is to integrate it into existing products which already exists so they can claim millions of daily active users. Same reason Google has added AI summary to their most used product: search.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  Same reason random companies shipped Web 3.0 and NFTs. They were hoping to make money off it. They're now hoping if they sprinkle some AI pixie dust it will make money. If they're smart they can grab a couple million off the AI bandwagon before it goes bust. Either way they need to keep up with the joneses.
  - pwdisswordfishz 1y ago
    Companies shipped the Semantic Web? When?
    - 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
      Web3, not 3.0 (I didn't realize they both use the same name). As late as last year I got a recruiter asking if I wanted to work for a Real Estate startup that was gonna use Web3 and Blockchain Technology to "revolutionize the housing market".
- shmerl 1y ago
  After investing a lot of money, bean counters can make things look better on paper if they can say "you see, everyone is using it". Others want to benefit from users actually training their AI. So they'll feed you all kind of party slogans, but they rarely are real motivations.
- rgreekguy 1y ago
  Microsoft only forces things, it's not a surprise at this point.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Basically FOMO, and keeping shareholders happy. We have OKRs for using AI, yet no dev tooling allowed without customer permission in projects delivery. So you have this ridiculous situation where the only tool devs are allowed to use is CoPilot 365, and pasting/saving code, for those that care about their OKRs.
- epolanski 1y ago
  Microsoft wants to lock you as soon as possible in their ecosystem for AI-usage? If they can get the many GH enterprise users to use copilot on their repos, then for Microsoft the future is merely about optimizing their margins while the technology keeps getting better.
- iphone_elegance 1y ago
  CEO tells CTO to allocate budget towards increasing productivity with AI and this is the asnwer, it's easy to enable and not that expensive to trial
- mrbigbob 1y ago
  Like others have said to justify their spending/make shareholders happy. its exactly like why is web search a part of windows search feature ? The answer is simple: gotta make Bing look good to shareholders
- karmakaze 1y ago
  My problem isn't that the AI is stock feature, it's that it's poorly bolted-on UX everywhere as popups/overlays etc that have to be dismissed to see/continue what I'm in the middle of doing. It's like getting a GDPR popover, not the first time you visit a new site, but every time you're doing a routine task.
feverzsj 1y ago
Since copilot is trained with opensource code, wouldn't more opensource vibe code make the model collapse?
- skinner927 1y ago
  That is generally a problem with all AI right now.
- bravetraveler 1y ago
  Not factored into OKRs, unfortunately. Maybe next time. Or never!
- euLh7SM5HDFY 1y ago
  It isn't just code, all AI models need to train on equivalent of low-background radiation steel, before the nuke was detonated(or ChatGPT was released to public).
- RajT88 1y ago
  Didn't people prove that MSFT trained it on private repos too?
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Don't panic. These forced AI shenanigans won't last, just like Clippy in ms word back in the day. Now barely a memory.
qhwudbebd 1y ago
I think it's pretty much policy by now that GitHub don't allow features to be disabled by users who dislike them. Those of us with public projects that don't or can't accept contributions through GH PRs (including niche things like torvalds/linux) have been asking to disable PRs since day 1.
hommes-r 1y ago
Sad to see the "change world GDP" mantra didn't trickle down to the people doing the actual plumbing.
Szpadel 1y ago
doesn't you need to explicitly add copilot as reviewer for it to comment? I recently tried it for our own PRs and it is far from perfect but it was able to find some typos, and I had to explicitly ask it for doing review am I missing something?
egorfine 1y ago
They will not let people disable Copilot. The reason is that "we are all-in on AI". [1] They have spent so much funds on AI infra that now they have to justify these decisions before the investors by forcing Copilot on everyone. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/vscode/comments/1mk7dcc/comment/n7gtjvl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vscode/comments/1mk7dcc/comment/n7g... PS: I absolutely love Copilot. What I hate is MS's approach to it
jmclnx 1y ago
If I was still on github, I would also vote to disable copilot. But I wonder if my usage back then would even run afoul of copilot ? All I did was access github using ssh(1)/git(1). I only went into the WEB Page to create new projects, so maybe copilot would have been a non-issue for me. Github was just a storage location to allow other people to get my items.

78 points by carodgers 1y ago

I had to sort by "Top: last year" to see two Copilot-related issues at the top. They are: - https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/159749 https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/159749 - https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/169148 https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/169148

carodgers 1y ago
Thank you. I included the url params when I made the post, but it appears that HN strips these.

rcleveng 1y ago

:shocked_pikachu_face: In all seriousness, I was using a different LLM with vscode, and it still kept popping up dialogs about copilot. This is after I had uninstalled the copilot extensions (or at least I tried to uninstall it all). I'd love for the IDE's like cursor to be able to be an extension on vscode and such, but this type of thing makes it super hard for that to be a reality.

noobermin 1y ago

Can people currently in these companies tell me why the companies are forcing people to use AI? I understand offering as an option, the constant forced opt-ins is leading to obvious fatigue...

toomuchtodo 1y ago
To grow revenue. If it’s an option, it is less likely to be bought versus including it and increasing prices to get towards growth goals. Tech wants the growth, companies consuming this want to be able to do more with less people. The result is the current experience. (TLDR line go up)
georgemcbay 1y ago
Can't make a bubble without generating a lot of froth.
feverzsj 1y ago
To attract more investment, because it's the hottest trend. They don't care if it actually works and profits.
_Algernon_ 1y ago
They have invested huge amounts in the AI bubble which they have to justify to shareholders and / or investors. The easiest way to do this is to integrate it into existing products which already exists so they can claim millions of daily active users. Same reason Google has added AI summary to their most used product: search.
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
Same reason random companies shipped Web 3.0 and NFTs. They were hoping to make money off it. They're now hoping if they sprinkle some AI pixie dust it will make money. If they're smart they can grab a couple million off the AI bandwagon before it goes bust. Either way they need to keep up with the joneses.
- pwdisswordfishz 1y ago
  Companies shipped the Semantic Web? When?
  - 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
    Web3, not 3.0 (I didn't realize they both use the same name). As late as last year I got a recruiter asking if I wanted to work for a Real Estate startup that was gonna use Web3 and Blockchain Technology to "revolutionize the housing market".
shmerl 1y ago
After investing a lot of money, bean counters can make things look better on paper if they can say "you see, everyone is using it". Others want to benefit from users actually training their AI. So they'll feed you all kind of party slogans, but they rarely are real motivations.
rgreekguy 1y ago
Microsoft only forces things, it's not a surprise at this point.
pjmlp 1y ago
Basically FOMO, and keeping shareholders happy. We have OKRs for using AI, yet no dev tooling allowed without customer permission in projects delivery. So you have this ridiculous situation where the only tool devs are allowed to use is CoPilot 365, and pasting/saving code, for those that care about their OKRs.
epolanski 1y ago
Microsoft wants to lock you as soon as possible in their ecosystem for AI-usage? If they can get the many GH enterprise users to use copilot on their repos, then for Microsoft the future is merely about optimizing their margins while the technology keeps getting better.
iphone_elegance 1y ago
CEO tells CTO to allocate budget towards increasing productivity with AI and this is the asnwer, it's easy to enable and not that expensive to trial
mrbigbob 1y ago
Like others have said to justify their spending/make shareholders happy. its exactly like why is web search a part of windows search feature ? The answer is simple: gotta make Bing look good to shareholders
karmakaze 1y ago
My problem isn't that the AI is stock feature, it's that it's poorly bolted-on UX everywhere as popups/overlays etc that have to be dismissed to see/continue what I'm in the middle of doing. It's like getting a GDPR popover, not the first time you visit a new site, but every time you're doing a routine task.

feverzsj 1y ago

Since copilot is trained with opensource code, wouldn't more opensource vibe code make the model collapse?

skinner927 1y ago
That is generally a problem with all AI right now.
bravetraveler 1y ago
Not factored into OKRs, unfortunately. Maybe next time. Or never!
euLh7SM5HDFY 1y ago
It isn't just code, all AI models need to train on equivalent of low-background radiation steel, before the nuke was detonated(or ChatGPT was released to public).
RajT88 1y ago
Didn't people prove that MSFT trained it on private repos too?

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Don't panic. These forced AI shenanigans won't last, just like Clippy in ms word back in the day. Now barely a memory.

qhwudbebd 1y ago

I think it's pretty much policy by now that GitHub don't allow features to be disabled by users who dislike them. Those of us with public projects that don't or can't accept contributions through GH PRs (including niche things like torvalds/linux) have been asking to disable PRs since day 1.

hommes-r 1y ago

Sad to see the "change world GDP" mantra didn't trickle down to the people doing the actual plumbing.

Szpadel 1y ago

doesn't you need to explicitly add copilot as reviewer for it to comment? I recently tried it for our own PRs and it is far from perfect but it was able to find some typos, and I had to explicitly ask it for doing review am I missing something?

egorfine 1y ago

They will not let people disable Copilot. The reason is that "we are all-in on AI". [1] They have spent so much funds on AI infra that now they have to justify these decisions before the investors by forcing Copilot on everyone. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/vscode/comments/1mk7dcc/comment/n7gtjvl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vscode/comments/1mk7dcc/comment/n7g... PS: I absolutely love Copilot. What I hate is MS's approach to it

jmclnx 1y ago

If I was still on github, I would also vote to disable copilot. But I wonder if my usage back then would even run afoul of copilot ? All I did was access github using ssh(1)/git(1). I only went into the WEB Page to create new projects, so maybe copilot would have been a non-issue for me. Github was just a storage location to allow other people to get my items.