On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 11:52:41AM +1200, Shane Mulligan wrote:
> Hi Stefan and dick,
> 
> * Reponse to Stefan
> ** Capabilities of "GPT-3+vscode" (Copilot)
> Copilot uses a specialised version of GPT-3 called codex which is optimised
> to generate code.

GPT-3 is not free software [1]. Only the service is accessible to us,
mere mortals.

As for Copilot, one could even argue that it harvests [2] free software
at the costs of all of us.

As far as I am concerned, I'll put as much distance as I can between
myself and Copilot (or Github, for the same reasons).

I often asked myself how Github could have been worth $7 billion to
Microsoft. Now I begin to understand.

Cheers

[1] "Microsoft announced on September 22, 2020 that it had licensed
    'exclusive' use of GPT-3; others can still use the public API to
    receive output, but only Microsoft has access to GPT-3’s underlying
    code."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-3

[2] https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/
    https://juliareda.eu/2021/07/github-copilot-is-not-infringing-your-copyright/  

 - tomás