Search is another key benefit. It's really nice being able to search the gamut of open source repositories for bits of code.

I think part of the problem is Microslop's Github Copilot in the web, which makes it possible for non developers to quickly and easily create PRs without understanding a single thing about programming, let alone software development.

It wouldn't surprise me of people genuinely think they are helping.

Let's deal with the mountain of AI slop garbage in the same way as what worked before:

We need some kind of reputation system for open source contributors. If you push slop, I don't want to see your PR. If you consistently make worthwhile contributions, I'll check out your PR.

This is interesting and sounds like how I've been using it - basically like customised stack overflow answers.

Would you mind elaborating a little on your approach? Are you saying you provide it with guidance and links or are you asking it for those?

most people are idiots. AI makes them clearly visible to everyone, and theyre too dumb to realize how obvious it is

It has been kind of amazing. I'm sure they'll catch on, eventually.

You might want to look into git commit --date

I've never shared my opensource work and still gotten jobs. IMO having opensource profiles is a liability for those who don't have well known projects. Mine are nearly all explorations into unknown stuff and quickly thrown together. If they looked at my profile, it wouldn't be a reflection of my capabilities.

Microslop has an editor in Github that makes it dead easy to create PRs with Copilot. It's very low friction. On another platform, you have to download the editor first and install some agentic coding plugin (or download an agentic editor) and pay for it to get started. Much more friction.

Less popular, less traffic - double edged sword.

A lot of people study CS or programming because they have been told it would make them a lot of money. If you just want to make money and don’t care about anything else you’re always just going to put in the minimum effort required, so I’m not surprised people just can’t be bothered to switch.

My re-spec online classes started by installing VS Code and connecting it to user's own GitHub repository that was then used to upload homework in Jupyter notebook format. It was pretty streamlined, that is good when you want to fast-forward into making students write their own first code lessons, leaving off technicalities, but there we didn't heard a word about if any of these three choices are necessary to start coding. I only recently got interested enough to research other options, at the same time I left Windows as a default OS. I'm not sure any of my classmates would tho until something critical happens, and for many this pipeline is probably what they are still using by now.

That is an excellent question and I wouldn't put it past them. Only time will tell.

They are already throwing a fit because Chinese companies are distilling their models, so them trying to copyright their copyright infringement machines is definitely plausible. And with a US system as it exists today, it might very well work. Hopefully the rest of the world will have told the US to fuck off by then...

What happens in a couple years when all this code that’s been written by Copilot and the like, Microsoft then turns around and says, “OH YEAH, BTW THAT WAS GENERATED BY OUR AI SO NOW WE OWN YOUR APP!” Look, most social media ToS says anything uploaded to their sites is owned by them now, royalties-free.

courts have already ruled that AI can't own copyright. if it's not generated by humans, it doesn't generate copyright.

Right now it's no big deal to any AI company because more code means more training for the AI, but will we get to the point that they're happy with code output enough and then turn around claiming they own those?

At least in the US:

The vast majority of commenters agreed that existing law is adequate in this area and that material generated wholly by AI is not copyrightable.

So it seems unlikely that they would be able to claim any ownership.

As for the rest of your comment (the parts around ownership): you always own the copyright for any copyrightable work you create, including code. When you post on a website, according to the ToS of that site, you're licensing your comment/code/whatever to the website (you need to for them to be able to publish your work on their website).

Some (many, most depending on what you use) websites overlicense your work and use it for other purposes as well (like GitHub), but in the US the judges have basically ruled that AI companies can pirate whatever works they want without any attempt to license them and still be fine, so the "overlicense" bit is more of a formality at this point anyway.

So many things are ruined when friction is completely removed.

Microslop is one step ahead and has an online editor with Copilot integrated into it. That makes the chance of getting an LLM assisted or written PR even higher. Knowing Microslop, hey will go even further and have Copilot activated on all active repos, submitting PRs - and CoPilot will be opt-out

I wouldn't put it past them.