> A giant corporation openly steals code from millions of devs and uses to try and automate us and programmers cheer it on.
Actual programmers don't cheer it on. Only modern """programmers""" aka professional CTRL+V pressers, the kinds of people that usually "write" software in languages like javascript by importing a few hundred open source libraries and jamming them together until it vaguely does what they want. Copilot is good for these people because using others' code is all they do anyway, AI just helps them do it more efficiently, and without having to worry about all those pesky licenses.
Excuse me? I know tons of very skilled programmers who use it, simply because of the time it saves.
I use it regularly in C#, JS, CSS, and hell, C++ ocassionately.
It's not about using other people's code, it's about it saving time by generating pretty much the code I was already going to write (with pretty good accuracy too). Once you have enough knowledge, I see no difference in the code Copilot generates (at least, not any better quality/perf) than I would have written.
So yes, I cheer it on, and I love it. It has made my development life easier. 17+ years of coding, and this has been a big impact for me.
How about a version of copilot that only learns from your personal career codebase? Or perhaps only works based on a company's internal codebase? That would remove any legal ambiguity.
If these templates are as common as you suggest, it seems learning from your personal codebase should get the job done.
Actual programmers don't cheer it on. Only modern """programmers""" aka professional CTRL+V pressers, the kinds of people that usually "write" software in languages like javascript by importing a few hundred open source libraries and jamming them together until it vaguely does what they want. Copilot is good for these people because using others' code is all they do anyway, AI just helps them do it more efficiently, and without having to worry about all those pesky licenses.