natefinch

5 ms·

1.
by natefinch 4y ago
Copilot is software, it can't be the author, just like the OS isn't the author when you copy and paste. Authors have to be humans.
2.
by natefinch 4y ago
Presumably because you don't have the right to grant github those permissions, only the copyright owner does.
3.
by natefinch 4y ago
AI can code low level stuff. This one function. This small piece of logic. What it can't do is conceive of how to take a bunch of different functions and put them together to produce an actual product. It can't tell you if you sho
4.
by natefinch 4y ago
Well, if the entire thing was generated, then no (according to the first link I posted above), since it was not produced by a human. However, no useful program is going to be entirely written by an AI, so any real program would have quite a
5.
by natefinch 4y ago
That's still 100% true of the examples I mentioned. There's always a higher level to consider. When we moved to C, we could stop worrying about what registers we were using. When we moved to python/Java we could stop worrying
6.
by natefinch 4y ago
Anyone can already generate proprietary code that is identical to your GitHub project's code just using copy and paste. For people that care to respect copyright, there's a copilot setting to block exact copies of code in the trai
7.
by natefinch 4y ago
Some interesting reading: https://felixreda.eu/2021/07/github-copilot-is-not-infringin... https://fossa.com/blog/analyzing-legal-implications-github-c...
8.
by natefinch 4y ago
I'm sure that's what people said when they went from punch cards to assembly, and from assembly to C, and from C to Java.... and yet, here we are. Tools that let us write higher level code faster, just allow us to create more comp
9.
by natefinch 4y ago
There's a big difference between reverse engineering (i.e. intentionally writing software that behaves identically to another piece of software), and writing your own code to solve your own problem that may superficially contain small
10.
by natefinch 4y ago
Familiarity with the UX and conventions on that platform. Almost everyone knows how to make a PR against a GitHub repo. But some random other code hosting site? It would be a lot less familiar, and people would have to spend time making an
11.
by natefinch 4y ago
There's a setting on GitHub that blocks any suggestions that exactly match code in the training set. I doubt you'd ever get in trouble for code that was similar in structure but different variables etc from existing licensed code
12.
by natefinch 4y ago
I definitely never contributed to open source before github was around.
13.
by natefinch 4y ago
I think it's like any social network. It grows in value with how many people use it. Yes, you can host your own public git repo or even your own gitlab, but then there's a barrier of entry to contribute to your code, and it's
14.
by natefinch 4y ago
FWIW, there are some (admittedly fairly naive) checks to prevent PII and other sensitive info from being suggested to users. Copilot looks for things like ssh keys, social security numbers, email addresses, etc, and removes them from the su
15.
by natefinch 4y ago
It's still free with no payment for existing (beta/technical preview) customers. There was a github bug with some auth token nonsense that was causing problems, but all technical preview users should still be free for 60 days.
16.
by natefinch 4y ago
CI runs on CPUs, Copilot runs on GPUs. Waaaay different. Especially in this age of cryptocurrencies and chip shortages.
17.
by natefinch 4y ago
If you teach someone about music theory by listening to Stairway to Heaven, and then they write their own song that starts with an A minor chord... are they violating copyright of Stairway to Heaven? Copilot isn't sampling. Sampling is
18.
by natefinch 4y ago
I mean, it was informed by both, but basically everyone thinks it's a good idea.
19.
by natefinch 4y ago
It's not copying open source code. If you learn an algorithm to balance a binary tree from reading GPL code, and then go use that algorithm in your own closed-source project, with your own variables and types and context, are you break
20.
by natefinch 4y ago
I very often will let it suggest its thing and then tweak it to work how I want. It's like super auto-complete for me. If I can't remember how a specific pattern goes for some library, I'll let it write it for me, and then do
21.
by natefinch 4y ago
People in the technical preview get a 60 day free trial, but yes, after that, you'll have to pay.
22.
by natefinch 4y ago
This is kind of like saying that any programmer who has ever learned something from reading GPL code can only use that knowledge when writing GPL code. It's not literally copying the code. The training set isn't stored on disk and
23.
by natefinch 4y ago
Source: I work on the copilot team.
24.
by natefinch 4y ago
You have to give a credit card or other payment details to enter the free trial.
25.
by natefinch 4y ago
There are some GitHub problems that are getting addressed right now.
26.
by natefinch 4y ago
There is logic to ensure that copilot does not emit exact duplicates of code in the training set... but that logic is significantly newer than that tweet.
27.
by natefinch 4y ago
The machine learning models are not open source themselves, so you can't just do this yourself with existing open source projects.
28.
by natefinch 5y ago
Go's garbage collector has super short stop the world now, about 1ns IIRC. Most of the work is done concurrently from the main process threads.
29.
by natefinch 5y ago
How can someone know if they're interested or not in an implementation of BGP if they don't know what it is? I have been a professional software developer for 22 years with a 4 year CS degree from a good school, and I only ever he
30.
by natefinch 7y ago
When everything is twice as far away, it adds up. My wife and I work from home and we still manage 10,000 miles a year on the car. That's driving kids to school (just a couple miles each way), going grocery shopping (10 miles each way)

More ›