GitHub

GitHub is owned by Microsoft. I use GitHub, but I don't keep anything secret in GitHub. Why? Partly because Microsoft is a company that lives off surveillance capitalism and partly because they use our data to try and make artificial intelligence profitable.

Table of contents

2024-12-19: GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio is now free, but by creating profit from your data

Microsoft have now made Copilot for GitHub free for use in Visual Studio Code (VS Code). VS Code is today what most programmers use to produce code.

This is a big deal. The free use is currently at 80 uses per day. Is there a catch?

github_copilot_settings.png

A couple of GitHub settings (not only for VS Code) are interesting. The settings were for myself enabled by default and are found in Copilot settings:

In other words: pilfer code that others have written. Does this violate licenses that coders have added to their repositories? Back in 2022, The Next Web reported that Copilot stole code and removed credit[1].

Do note the supporting information in this setting:

Allow GitHub, its affiliates and third parties to use my code snippets to research and improve GitHub Copilot suggestions, related models and product features

In other words: pilfer my code and sell it to whomever for profit.

2024-12-20: the first AI class-action lawsuit

According to Wired Magazine, let's not forget the first AI class-action lawsuit: Doe vs. GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

The first class action lawsuit concerning generative AI was brought by five anonymous GitHub contributors who object to how the Microsoft-owned code platform’s Copilot and Codex tools were trained. Notably, this case focused on alleged violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The quote is from Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Visualized[2].

  1. Greene, Tristan. “Copilot Works so Well Because It Steals Open Source Code and Strips Credit.” TNW | Deep-Tech. Last modified July 1, 2022. Accessed April 3, 2023. https://thenextweb.com/news/github-copilot-works-so-well-because-it-steals-open-source-code-strips-credit. ↩︎

  2. Knibbs, Kate. “Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Visualized.” Wired, December 19, 2024. Accessed December 20, 2024. https://www.wired.com/story/ai-copyright-case-tracker/. ↩︎