Enabling ai co author by default by cwebster-99 · Pull Request #310226 · microsoft/vscode
Posted by Maybe-monad@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 49 comments
DualWieldMage@reddit
Trying to recreate the "Sent from my iPhone" at end of message idiotism? Looks like desperation at this point.
Kendos-Kenlen@reddit
I see it as a very good thing : now, randoms who think they can code and submit OS PRs of low quality can now be easily flagged.
After all, the co-author mainly happens when most of the code is written by AI. Why would devs want to hide this, when clearly most maintainers now want to be aware of it?
The process may not have been followed very well on their end (but again, Microsoft is pushing hard on AI for everyone), but the end result is a good thing for the industry.
fCJ7pbpyTsMpvm@reddit
But this change done the opposite - it was tagging entirely human written code as being co-authored by AI.
flying-sheep@reddit
Not entirely human written ones, no. But effectively human written ones that only had e.g. a 10-character Windsurf autocomplete in them.
GasolinePizza@reddit
Do you mean it's faulty?
Because the option itself is just supposed to add attribution when the code in the commit was part of copilot's changes. If it's bugged then that's no good, but if not then this being enabled by default is definitely good.
really_not_unreal@reddit
Honestly would be super helpful for catching idiot students who vibe code their assignments.
uwillloveeachother@reddit
the issue seems to be that it’s co-authoring entirely human made commits too
flying-sheep@reddit
I think only commits that had some edits by LLMs in them, but that’s not much less problematic, as 1. it didn’t check that these edits are substantial (e.g. a 10-character LLM-driven autocomplete to save typing isn’t “authorship”) and 2. it didn’t check that the LLM making the edits was actually Copilot before attributing to Copilot.
really_not_unreal@reddit
Oh that's stupid.
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
They'll catch a few until the students learn how to disable it.
itsmegoddamnit@reddit
“It’s ok yall it was a mistake, not what we intended”
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
Especially when there's legal precedent according to which humans not the tools own the copyright.
flying-sheep@reddit
Oldd news. They reverted it, why didn’t you post about that? https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/313931
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
The most important thing is that they dared to claim authorship for VSCode users' code regardless if it was generated by their slop machine or not without any forethought and no announcement, reverting the change is damage control and imo means nothing because the trust is already breached.
flying-sheep@reddit
Yeah, I posted about that days ago. My point is that by the time you posted, they had rectified it, making your post dishonest.
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
The link to the "rectifying" PR is in the thread I posted and the fact that it exists is not making my post dishonest but your comments. The solution implemented in that PR is having the feature disabled by default and enabled when Copilot is also enabled given the fact there is legal precedent according to which such tools can't own copyrights. Microsoft's behavior is fraudulent and people deserve to know the full story.
flying-sheep@reddit
LMAO, what a “no u”-ass reply. How in the fuck am I dishonest here?
As said: I made a post complaining about them doing that back when they hadn’t fixed or addressed it in any way. Now that they have, it’s only fair to mention that.
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
by claiming they fixed the issue when they didn't
IskaneOnReddit@reddit
At this rate i'm gonna have to disable auto update on vscode
devacon@reddit
The fact that a Product Manager could open a PR with this wide of implications with no description and get it merged is ridiculous. This PR would have failed basic linting checks anywhere I've worked in the last 20 years.
franklindstallone@reddit
It looks like the standard affair for most companies I’ve worked at from small companies to billion dollar companies.
At least it’s more descriptive than the other typical thing of jira tickets that are a title only.
IdiocracyToday@reddit
Linting??
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
PR checks are a no go, do you want PM not to be able to get a raise for silently screwing users on Microslop's behalf?
rzet@reddit
https://imgur.com/5lIvLRh
:D
theFallenWalnut@reddit
Most of that comment feels like it was written by AI... Time to start using a different IDE.
magnetronpoffertje@reddit
This is horrible. No description, no motivation, no ticket, made by a non-dev, AI summary which is wrong, AI review let it through completely unreviewed and untested by a human.
Im switching away. This is not the kind of company I want making software that I use
Sharlinator@reddit
I’m sure the PM responsible is going to fail upward.
cheesekun@reddit
Promotion incoming
droptableadventures@reddit
Tracking whether any Copilot generated code is in the diff currently being committed, and adding this to the commit message? That's a somewhat reasonable feature.
Doing this by default, even if the user didn't actually use Copilot, even if the user isn't even signed into Copilot, even if the user has
disableAIFeaturesset in their VS Code? That's a serious absolute WTF.flying-sheep@reddit
Not exactly – every commit made by anything LLM. In my case it detected autocompletions by Windsurf, which failed in two ways: - The way I use Windsurf is just to save typing, i.e. I don’t accept completions that I wouldn’t have typed manually in exactly the same way, which means Windsurf shouldn’t get any credit for the content. - It attributed authorship to fucking Copilot, which wasn’t involved in any way!
PerkyPangolin@reddit
This is so low effort, there's not even a PR description, and PR title has poor capitalization. This would have been thrown out on any open source project I'm a part of. Same for the commit messages. What in the fuck.
Maybe-monad@reddit (OP)
You can add
"git.addAICoAuthor": "off"to the VSCode configuration to disable it.I have been using VSCode for several embedded projects thanks to the great integration with platformio and thanks to this breach of trust I'll be moving to VSCodium.
zzkj@reddit
Thanks for that setting. Every time I try to disable CoPilot in vscode something brings it back later. I'll give this a try.
PerkyPangolin@reddit
I've been using VS Code since 2015, and this is the straw that made me switch to Zed. Setting it up now. Fuck a MS. Whatever good will they had in open source community is being eroded fast.
freecodeio@reddit
I just wish zed had more hover info like vscode does
max123246@reddit
Why does the PR capitalization matter at all? I agree it shouldn't have been merged as is, especially when changing a default. But let's keep it to what actually matters
PerkyPangolin@reddit
Because it shows how low-effort PRs from management are merged with zero pushback.
Absolute_Enema@reddit
Behold, the modern software industry.
lppedd@reddit
What surprises me is seeing genz or millennials managers doing this kinda bullshit.
I guess working corporate corrupts everyone.
Sharlinator@reddit
It’s much much easier these days to throw shit at a program until some of it sticks given that everything is always-online and auto-updating. Back when there was exactly one release version that was then sent to be distributed as physical copies, and any patches would also have to be physically distributed or at best downloaded through very slow connections, you absolutely couldn’t afford to do something like this. But back then there was something called QA, before it was outsourced to the customers.
lppedd@reddit
I admit I like shipping fast and frequently. I think the real issue of this culture is stuff like "if your MR does not get reviewed in 24h your team is dysfunctional". Nope, if the feature's impact is considerable or the code/explanation is dogdgit it should take whatever time it makes sense.
alex-weej@reddit
Capitalism
TechBriefbyBMe@reddit
Enabling it by default is just admitting we've all been using it anyway, we just wanted plausible deniability for the next code review.
flying-sheep@reddit
No, they reverted it because it wasn’t working. It - gave attribution to copilot when not using copilot - didn’t distinguish between LLM generation and autocomplete.
Sobsz@reddit
of course an llm karma bot would say that
^(there may be a human behind it but generally the comment history strikes me as having had an llm involved)
echoAnother@reddit
Well, seems that people will migrate to zed. And not because the editor or ecosystem is mature, but because their competency that used to be good, likes to shoot their own balls, again and again.
I'm tired of switching, boss.
IskaneOnReddit@reddit
PR to change that: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/313725
DocMcCoy@reddit
Microslop VS Slop
tumes@reddit
The fucking balls it takes to automatically attribute your shitty plagiaristic bubble chat bot instead of the corpus it stole from…. Next level shit taking credit for the breadth and depth of human knowledge.