Talk:GitHub Copilot

Copilot is good for what it does, why is this article so negative?
I'm a software engineer using Copilot daily -- it's pretty good. I believe the article should explore more about what Copilot can and can't do in addition to just listing out controversies. 2603:6080:3F40:270B:98C6:98FC:EC03:DF30 (talk)

Well there's a huge problem with it being cloud based instead of running locally. It hands over all our data to a service that we have no control over. It's likely in a couple of years (maybe a decade) law enforcement might start collecting the data in order to fingerprint developers, so every snippet of code on the Internet will be traceable, if we all end up all using this service. Definitely intelligence agencies will be doing this. Once the data is there, people in power will get their hands on it, it is only a matter of time, this has been proven time and time again. And this has implications for people writing controversial software e.g. in the cryptocurrency industry. It will at the very least cause a chilling effect. 86.130.92.69 (talk) 09:39, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Privacy and Ethical concerns
I've added a section on the privacy and ethical concerns of switching to what is essentially a cloud editor, where every single keystroke is logged to the cloud. Also a mention of offline alternatives would be useful, even if those are poor alternatives at present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.92.69 (talk) 09:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

And there will be a large flow of analytics data which no doubt is going to be mined and psychological profiles built from that, in a worst case scenario.

So basically it's turning our private computers into terminals and if it's usage becomes widespread in the industry we will have to submit to this otherwise we will become uncompetitive. It is yet another big expansion of the government and corporate power over society as more and more things become online by default.

The Free Software Foundation has more information on the dangers of doing this, which start to become apparent after roughly a decade of widespread usage. 86.130.92.69 (talk) 10:00, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Should we write about the whole leaking secrets fiasco?
Many people are worried (mostly on Twitter) that GitHub Copilot can leak secrets.

There has already been at least one report of secrets being leaked, however it is still unclear whether they were real.

Peter Placzek (talk) 19:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I’m unsure if Twitter posts are enough to warrant addition here. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him 21:12, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Kuhn (2022) article
I have not got the expertise to add this, but it might be relevant? RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 20:21, 8 February 2022 (UTC)




 * According to the FSF it certainly is. This is one of the 5 papers underscored by an anonymous review. --Palosirkka (talk) 08:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I added a sentence about the SFC dropping GitHub and their reasoning in that post. Wqwt (talk) 04:34, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Litigation beginning November 2022
Formal litigation started in earlyNovember 2022. A web search on "github copilot litigation" will throw up quite a few good sources. There is even a dedicated website: https://githubcopilotlitigation.com. Sorry but Ihave not the time to write this up. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Release date in info box incorrect?
The infobox states that Copilot was released in October 2021. However, the text mentions that it was released for technical preview in June. In October additional extensions for Neovim and Jetbrains IDEs had been released, but I could not find any credible references mentioning anything else happening in October. I suggest, that this release date is either changed to June 2021, when the technical preview went live or June 2022, when GitHub announced that Copilot would be available for all developers. What do you think? 87.163.207.60 (talk) 12:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)