Let’s ask the small questions first. Have you ever programmed? It’s completely fine if you’ve never touched the surface of coding, but if you program, imagine this.. you are programming hundreds and thousands of lines of code at the tip of your fingertips. You end the day with a big ol’ yawn, get in the shower, and the shower thoughts commence. What if you can implement AI-Technology to make it code for you based on a readable language prompt?
https://voicebot.ai/2021/07/01/openai-and-github-unveil-new-copilot-ai-assistant-for-coding/
Crazy enough, technology is already 1 step ahead of us. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, along with Github, recently released a self-generating computer code AI, called CoPilot. This innovative technology simply lets you type in any natural language prompt and convert it into lines of code across any programming language. Whether it is python, java, C#, or C++, CoPilot finishes the job you needed to be done. The program as of right now on the GitHub website only charges users $10/month or $100/year, with a bonus of 60 trial-days free of charge. For university students like us, CoPilot is 100% free.
“Early Bird” Statistics
Within only a month after releasing the AI in early June of 2022, Github sparked over 400,000 subscribers for CoPilot. Before that, over 1.2 million signed up during the preview period. According to ciodive.com, within the first few months of release, Microsoft is already aiming at taking a slice of the software market, which is set to grow around 21% by the end of this year (Torres, 2022).
While CoPilot AI is still in its early development stages, writing up to 35%-40% of your code is an immense percentage when programming longer projects. Furthermore, not only does CoPilot generate code based on your prompt, it allows code interpretation, meaning that the AI can explain unusual code in natural language.
What’s Happening?
So, what’s the catch? I’ll let you imagine this as well. Imagine working on your own programming language, working for years on end, and finally being able to publish your program to the public. Everything is going great and you’ve feel like you’re on top of the world, until a big company creates an AI. The AI uses your programming language in the process, and does not give you any credit for any of the original codes you’ve done, how would you feel?
That’s exactly what Matthew Butterick felt, a programmer, about the newly-released AI. Mr. Butterick is a programmer, writer, designer, and lawyer, who is suing the AI founders and filing lawsuits. Mr. Butterick claims that the AI is full of piracy due to their approach of the AI, which was analyzing billions of existing code on the internet. AI is not original, as claimed by Mr. Butterick. Even though on the surface level it seems alright, the AI does not acknlowedge the programmers who built the original code on the internet, in which Mr. Butterick is lawsuiting for. On the other hand, Microsoft’s counter-argument on these reasons was that shortly releasing CoPilot, Github’s chief executive claim’s that the codes that the AI interprets are “fair-use”.
Personally on some aspects I stand on Matthew Butterick’s side due to the fact that programmer’s had actually taken years to fully make their code useable, and just for an AI to fully use it without recognition of the programmer, it ruins their recognition. However, at the end of the day, is anyone really original as they claim to be? Let me possibly ask you and everyone else that programs:
Are you where you are today, a successful programmer, maybe because you’re a natural, or also because of looking/studying other people’s code examples?
My argument against Matthew Butterick’s argument is simple:
if human’s can use other people’s code for personal benefit and without explicit consent, so can AI.
Im highly interested in your thoughts on this. Is CoPilot’s approach on interpreting code morally right? Feel free to counter-argue my opinions, I am eager to read all your opinions on it 🙂
Sources:
“Lawsuit Takes Aim at the Way A.I. Is Built.” The New York Times, 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/technology/copilot-microsoft-ai-lawsuit.html#commentsContainer.
Wiggers, Kyle. “Copilot, GitHub’s AI-Powered Programming Assistant, Is Now Generally Available.” TechCrunch, 21 June 2022, techcrunch.com/2022/06/21/copilot-githubs-ai-powered-programming-assistant-is-now-generally-available/.
Torres, Roberto. “GitHub Copilot Adds 400K Subscribers in First Month.” CIO Dive, Aug. 2022, www.ciodive.com/news/github-copilot-microsoft-software-developer/628587/.