inkdroid-org-belior.txt (8229B)
1 • [2]Home 2 • [3]About 3 • [4]Tags 4 • [5]Bookmarks 5 • [6]Photos 6 • [7]Podcasts 7 • [8]Music 8 • [9]Software 9 • [10]Mastodon 10 • [11]Talks 11 • [12]Web Archives 12 • [13]Feed 13 • [14]🎁 14 15 Why I don't use Copilot 16 17 June 4, 2023 18 [15]programming [16]artificial-intelligence 19 20 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 21 22 TL;DR Don’t install Copilot. It rots your brain and destroys the environment. 23 24 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 25 [rubber-duc] [17]A rubber duck in use by a developer to aid code review 26 27 [18]GitHub Copilot is a technology that is designed to help you write code, 28 kind of like your partner in [19]pair programming. But, you know, it’s not an 29 actual person. It’s “A.I.”–whatever that means. 30 31 In principle this sounds like it might actually be a good thing right? I know 32 several people, who I respect, that use it as part of their daily work. I’ve 33 heard [20]smart people say AI coding assistants like Copilot will democratize 34 programming, by making it possible for more people to write code, and automate 35 the drudgery out of their lives. I’m not convinced. 36 37 Here’s why I don’t use Copilot (or ChatGPT) to write code: 38 39 1. Copilot’s suggestions are based on a corpus of open source code in GitHub, 40 but the suggestions do not mention where the code came from, and what the 41 license is. GitHub is stealing and selling intellectual property. 42 2. Copilot lets you write code faster. I don’t think more code is a good 43 thing. The more code there is, the more code there is to maintain. 44 Minimalism in features is usually a good thing too. Less really is more. 45 3. As more and more programmers use Copilot it creates conservativism in 46 languages and frameworks that prevents people from creating and learning 47 new ways of doing things. Collectively, we get even more stuck in our ways 48 and biases. Some of the biases encoded into LLMs are things that we are 49 actively trying to [21]change. 50 4. Developers become dependent on Copilot for intellectual work. Actually, 51 maybe addicted is a better word here. The same could be (and was) said 52 about the effect of search engines on software development work 53 (e.g. Googling error messages). But the difference is that search results 54 need to be interpreted, and the resulting web pages have important context 55 that you often need to understand. This is work that Copilot optimizes away 56 and truncates our knowledge in the process. 57 5. Copilot costs money. It doesn’t cost tons of money (for a professional 58 person in the USA) but it could be significant for some. Who does it 59 privilege? Also, it could change (see point 4). Remember who owns this 60 thing. 61 6. How much [22]energy does it take to run Copilot as millions of developers 62 outsource their intellectual work to its LLM infrastructure? Is this 63 massive centralization and enclosure really progress in computing? Or is it 64 a [23]step backwards as we try to [24]reduce our energy use as a species? 65 7. What does Copilot see of the code in your editor? Does it use your code as 66 context for the prompt? What does it store, and remember, and give to 67 others? Somebody has probably looked into this, but if they have it is 68 always up for revision. Just out of principle I don’t want my editor 69 sending my code somewhere else without me intentionally doing it. 70 8. Working with others who use Copilot makes my job harder, since they 71 sometimes don’t really understand the details of why the code is written a 72 particular way. Over time Copilot code can mix idioms, styles and 73 approaches, in ways that the developer doesn’t really understand or even 74 recognize. This makes maintenance harder. 75 76 As far as I can tell the only redeeming qualities of Copilot are: 77 78 1. Copilot encourages you to articulate and describe a problem as written 79 prose before starting to write code. You don’t need Copilot for this. Maybe 80 keep a work journal or write a [25]design document? Maybe use your issue 81 tracker? Use [26]text to communicate with other people. 82 2. Copilot is more interactive than a [27]rubber duck. But, it turns out 83 Actual People are even more interactive and surprising. Reach out to other 84 professionals and make some friends. Go to workshops and conferences. 85 3. I could be convinced that Copilot has a useful place in the [28]review of 86 code rather than the first draft of code. It wouldn’t be a replacement for 87 review by people, but I believe it could potentially help people do the 88 review. I don’t think this exists yet? 89 4. Copilot makes me think critically about machine learning technology, my 90 profession and its place in the world. 91 92 Maybe my thinking on this will change. But I doubt it. I’m on the older side 93 for a software developer, and (hopefully) will retire some day. Maybe people 94 like me are on the way out, and writing code with Copilot and ChatGPT is the 95 future. Maybe programming has always been about increasing layers of 96 abstraction and this is just the next logical layer. I really hope not. 97 98 I enjoy programming because it’s about reasoning, thinking, models, concepts, 99 expression, communication, ethics, reading, learning, making, and process. It’s 100 an art and a practice that is best done with other people. 101 102 Increasingly I think it’s imperative for programming to be done more slowly, 103 more deliberatively, and as part of more conversations with more people. The 104 furious automation of everything is eating the world. 105 106 Programs need to run more efficiently. Programs need to be well understood, by 107 a more diverse and varied set of people. Programs need to be robust and 108 resilient. Programs need to be easier to change. 109 110 Can Copilot help with these [29]goals? I think the answer is no, because it 111 doesn’t actually understand anything, and more importantly, it doesn’t promote 112 understanding. 113 114 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 115 116 Update (2023-06-09): For another take on Copilot that uses this post as a 117 jumping off point see Vivek Haldar’s [30]Re: Why I don’t use Copilot. 118 119 Unless otherwise noted all the content here is licensed [31]CC-BY 120 121 122 References: 123 124 [2] https://inkdroid.org/ 125 [3] https://inkdroid.org/about/ 126 [4] https://inkdroid.org/tags/ 127 [5] http://pinboard.in/u:edsu 128 [6] https://www.flickr.com/photos/inkdroid 129 [7] https://inkdroid.org/podcasts/feed.opml 130 [8] https://bandcamp.com/edsu 131 [9] https://github.com/edsu 132 [10] https://social.coop/@edsu 133 [11] https://inkdroid.org/talks/ 134 [12] https://inkdroid.org/web-archives/archives/ 135 [13] https://inkdroid.org/feed.xml 136 [14] https://bookshop.org/wishlists/d7c0224f5440df8d2c174ad2cc38b3fca1aa813f 137 [15] https://inkdroid.org/tag/programming 138 [16] https://inkdroid.org/tag/artificial-intelligence 139 [17] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rubber_duck_assisting_with_debugging.jpg 140 [18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot 141 [19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming 142 [20] https://changelog.com/podcast/534 143 [21] https://www.wired.com/story/tech-confronts-use-labels-master-slave/ 144 [22] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3442188.3445922 145 [23] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/05/chatgpt-hidden-cost-gpu-compute/ 146 [24] https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more 147 [25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_description 148 [26] https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html 149 [27] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging 150 [28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_review 151 [29] https://permacomputing.net/ 152 [30] https://vivekhaldar.com/articles/re--why-i-don-t-use-copilot/ 153 [31] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/