GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

Microsoft has done a 180. Following backlash from developers, GitHub has removed Copilot's ability to stick ads - what it calls "tips" - into any pull request that invokes its name.  Australian developer Zach Manson noted on Monday that, after a coworker asked Copilot to correct a typo in one of his pull requests, he was …

[mebh]

180 vs 360

So far this is a 180. When GitHub adds the feature back in 3 months from now, hoping developers will be distracted and not complain as much, that will be the 360.

[David 132]

Re: 180 vs 360

As far as I'm concerned they can spin on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 180 vs 360

CoStarmer.

[Jeff 11]

Re: 180 vs 360

The Anthropic ads were supposed to - largely - be a parody. MS took them as free consultancy

[Snake]

Re: 180 vs 360

IMHO this is self-inflicted: if devs don't want Copilot to intrude into their lives then they need to stop bringing Copilot into their lives. They want Copilot around when it suits them but simultaneously do not want Copilot around when it does not, and modern corporations certainly don't play that game. It's All or Nothing.

So devs need to say "Nothing, thanks" and stop using Copilot if they expect it to not intrude anywhere and everywhere. That's the truth of modern life: you can't use a 'touch' of Google but somehow expect Google to respect your wishes for limited intrusion, you can't ask Oracle, you can't ask Facebook, you can't ask Twitter, you can't ask Palantir...and you can't ask Microsoft. Stop believing otherwise.

If you don't want Copilot to be able to show its face anywhere and everywhere you need to tighten your damn belt and remove or disable it everywhere it exists, in every device you own. It is SOLD as "AI" yet somehow you expect it to not grow its footprint to take advantages wherever it can - if it did that, then it wouldn't be "AI" now would it? Haven't been paying attention to futurists and sci-fi, not expecting "AI" to learn and adapt in order to grow its knowledge base? Bad kitty, bad. Off to bed without supper for you. The creators need it to be everywhere in the hope that it becomes something that actually [may] fulfill the "AI" promise on the tin - because the billions spent on development and hardware will need to be paid back one day.

Somehow.

[Someone Else]

Re: 180 vs 360

Bullshit. A tool is supposed to serve the user, not the other way around. I am the user, not the product.

The observation about the behavior of "modern corporations" is cogent, but that doesn't mean it needs to be, or even should be, blithely (or blindly) accepted. A "modern corporation" stepped across the line, and got it pee-pee whacked. Good! Keep up the good work! And be vigilant for when it happens again, and prepare to whack its corporate pee-pee again! The kind of lazy-assed acceptance advocated for by Snake above is all the "modern corporations" need to keep this shit up in the chase of "the fairytale of eternal economic growth", as Greta Thunberg so aptly put it.

[John Sager]

It's M$, what did you expect?

That the real downside of having a useful, and arguably vital, resource for Open Source owned by Microsoft. We're no longer in the Ballmer era but it sure looks like we're effectively heading back that way.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: It's M$, what did you expect?

I'd argue it's far from vital: clever marketing made it the most popular service for many but other services are available. However, there are always costs associated with moving.

[anthonyhegedus]

Trust issues

So Copilot was quietly editing other people's pull requests to insert product ads, and the defence was "it's to help developers learn"? At what point does an AI assistant that edits your work without asking, to advertise things, stop being an assistant and start being a liability? The fact that 11,400 PRs got hit before anyone noticed or said a word about it is the more troubling part.

[Fido]

Re: Trust issues

Reversing a bad idea is good idea. One wonders, however, what kind of management could devise such a plan in the first place and what their next idea might be.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Trust issues

"Guys! See the press about Windows updates? We. Need. To. Be. Cooooonsistent! Comprende? Mhhhmmmm Soree, kya aap samajhe?"

*voice from the back* "Do you mean consistently shite?"

"Bin fking Go! Ideas?"

*voice from the back* "Let's insert adds into Pull Request!" *uncontrollable laugh*

*round of applause*

"We have a VP material over there!!! Let's go let's go guys! Write prompts! Deploy! Remember! NO MISTAKES!" *uncontrollable laugh*

[Dan 55]

Re: Trust issues

Sorry guys, it was my fault, I should have kept quiet.

[theOtherJT]

Re: Trust issues

Man, when you call it, you really call it, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trust issues

"what their next idea might be."

Let me break it for you: silently edit the whole code without asking, the comments for example.

Sorry, I may give them ideas.

[munnoch]

Re: Trust issues

"what their next idea might be."

Automatically inserting the code to serve ads into your code?

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Trust issues

"Sorry you only have the basic free tier of Copilot with GitHub™, which will automatically restrict your code by adding bugs and inefficiencies. Upgrade to the standard tier for only $99.99 p/m which removes this restriction..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trust issues

"what their next idea might be."

Simple, it's a bummer: they're gonna insert ads comments into the code, of course !

See, they're so desperate for money, after 3 years of gigantic investments with 0 return that they need to ram this all into your throat and hope you're gonna pay for it, to stay or, most likely, to leave.

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: Trust issues

So the next logical step to inserting ads in the code is for users to accidentally ship code that includes said adverts and their users start wondering what the feck is going on.

Also be careful how you invoke that which shall not be named. If your PR says “no c*pilot here” then the response will be “hold my beer”.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Trust issues

Help developers learn to stop using GitHub and Microslop software.

[heyrick]

"tips"

Just more enshitification.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "tips"

No no no, it's something completely different called enshittipification.

[Jedit]

"something completely different called enshittipification."

And the people who use it are Homo Enshittipithecus?

(Evolutionary nomenclature, please, I'm not dropping slurs.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "something completely different called enshittipification."

Perhaps they're just taking the pith?

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: "something completely different called enshittipification."

Wrong genus. Probably Copropithecus.

[hx]

Name them, fire them, shame them

Then lock then in th stocks in the town square next to a few barrels of rotting vegetables. They keep assaulting us with ads, it's time to restore balance.

[Cincinnataroo]

List of enshittifiers

Is there a list of the enshittifiers with details of their crimes?

[Voice of Salinity]

Re: List of enshittifiers

TheRegister - documenting enshittification since 1994.

[Will Godfrey]

Don't forget...

There are other places.

Oh, and sourceforge long predates github by many years and is still there.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Don't forget...

Yup. My SourceForge login still works and the poisoned installers debacle is long behind us now (and compared to this year's litany of Github gaffs...)

Plus using good old Subversion seems to limit the AI "pull request" slop.

[T. F. M. Reader]

"a coworker asked Copilot to correct a typo"

We are all doomed...

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: "a coworker asked Copilot to correct a typo"

A crapworker asked Crappilot to gild a turd ?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Alternative ads

Copilot may one day break guardrails and start promoting treatments for hair loss, erectile dysfunction etc in order to pay it's way on Microsoft's balance sheet

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Alternative ads

Treatment for hair loss?

Stop your colleagues asking you to fix their Copilot authored code!

"You, what, it, aaaargh" (tearing noise)

[Locomotion69]

Into the third dimension!

180 vs 360 is regarded in the flat plane - Github should apply the z-dimension and disappear into the negative Z-axis until it is out of sight.

Yes to Git - No to GitHub

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: Into the third dimension!

So is there a real alternative? Can someone work up a distributed self hosted thing? I suppose it already is, so just need a web registry of repositories that want to publish like this.

[Steve Davies 3]

"Microsoft has done a 180"

This reminds me of a panto and "He's behind you".

Soon, it will be back. Maybe not today but who knows about tomorrow, the perfect day for this to rise from the ashes.

Don't trust MS with anything. There are alternatives for most people.

[sarusa]

'Mistake'

Every single thing Microslop has done since at least 2021 has been a 'mistake'. And this omni-shambles is Slopya Nadella's vision. As long as he's driving the company right into the ground a temporary pause like this is the best you can get.

[teebie]

Re: 'Mistake'

In fairness to them, everything they have done since at least 2021 has been a mistake. There is no need for the quote marks.

[Blane Bramble]

"We identified a programming logic issue with a GitHub Copilot coding agent tip that surfaced in the wrong context within a pull request comment. "

How did that get through their review of the Pull Request for updating GitHub?

[Andrew Dyson]

The devs were distracted by the advertising so they didn't notice

[Sil]

Maybe it's time for AI users to assess exactly which rights they grant to external organizations on their files, servers, networks, cloud assets, regulated personal data and whatnot. And which exposures to security risks and legal liabilities.

[JacobZ]

Here's a tip: Pick a lie and stick to it.

So was this a conscious but tone-deaf decision to insert ads that they then realized was "icky", as stated by GitHub VP of developer relations Martin Woodward?

Or was it an unintentional "programming logic issue with a GitHub Copilot coding agent tip that surfaced in the wrong context", as stated by Martin Woodward, VP of Developer Relations, GitHub?

Here's a "tip" for you, Martin: pick a lie and stick to it.

[JacobZ]

Nominee for Weasel Word of the Year

Using "tip" for "ad" has to be an early leader in the contest for Weasel Word of the Year.

[coredump]

Re: Nominee for Weasel Word of the Year

Toss the ad in the tip, perhaps.

[[e-mail]]

Recursive inshitification

Microsoft is now inshitifying the tools used to inshit things. Its as if everyone on the Internet is competing to be #1! in shit. Microsoft pulled out front with this stunt.

[TheWeetabix]

Difference of “opinion”?

Rogers said instituting this was a bad idea. That implies it was designed to do this.

Woodward says it was an unintended malf. That implies they didn’t design it to do this.

Really would be nice if the message was the same from both sources. Was it an intentional feature or was it an unintended interaction?

Being that it’s Microsoft, I’m sure we all know the answer.

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: Difference of “opinion”?

What happened in the beta trial then? Oh, of course, silly me, this is MS, there wasn’t one.

[Lisanna]

This is what pushed me over the edge...

...to finally move all my active projects to Codeberg. Fortunately GitHub has the handy profile readme.md feature so I can inform everyone that all my stuff is on codeberg now!

[Camilla Smythe]

I asked Copilot what it thought.

It can be a bit wordy but to paraphrase...

"That was a monumentally dumb idea."

[Anonymous Coward]

"GitHub does not and does not plan to include advertisements in GitHub. "

You already did. From corporate masters, but that's irrelevant: *You* don't get to decide that.

[spellucci]

Copilot is "Entertainment"

In Microsoft Copilot's Terms of Use (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals/termsofuse), Microsoft says, "Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. It can make mistakes, and it may not work as intended. Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice. Use Copilot at your own risk." [Microsoft's emphasis] The state of AI today is fascinating.