[IfOnlyYouKnew]

It's good to read a less dramatic take on Copilot. The initial echo chamber of outrage felt rather strange, especially considering the usual attitude when people point out risks in AI systems. I guess everyone else's reading-file-line-by-line loops in python are the epitome of creativity, and being inspired by them is its own category of crime compared to the exact same thing happening in uncreative professions such as photography, music, or writing? And not being hired because the algorithm prefers people who played lacrosse in school is, like, your problem, because waiting to release models until they do not harm anyone would seriously mess with our agile process.

As an aside, I really enjoyed the writing style. The subtle humour is better at signalling competence and friendliness than any CV ever could.

[ptx]

> I guess everyone else's reading-file-line-by-line loops in python are the epitome of creativity

I would certainly hope not, since there is barely any code to write:

  for line in my_file: ...

For even more convenience in common cases, there is the fileinput module[1] in the standard library.

I can see how a boilerplate-generating AI could be helpful in a more boilerplate-heavy language like Java, but a better solution is to use a language that better suits your usecase and lets you express it without the boilerplate.

[1] https://docs.python.org/3/library/fileinput.html

[vladiliescu]

I'd say using a better language is an easy decision to make when you're in a team of one and not depending on any framework-specific features and somewhat harder when you're in a team of more, depending on some framework-specific features, or both.

[vladiliescu]

Thank you :)