I think this post reads like an advertisement.

This post brought to you by Microsoft Copilot

Why?

My co-workers have tried to convince me, but all I've seen are a handful of funny and weird results. I haven't actually seen a real productivity improvement.

In fact, I recently did an interview and let the candidate use copilot, and they pretty much bombed because they relied way too much on the tools. Copilot made an obvious mistake, I had to point it out, then they repeated that exact same mistake later on without noticing. LLMs like copilot make stuff up and get stuff wrong enough to be a serious issue.

I personally don't see much value in it, and I see a large potential for relying too heavily on it and making obvious mistakes. Then again, I haven't personally used it, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. There's no harm in trying it out, just be skeptical and don't drink the Kool aid. Then again, I'm a Linux using nutjob that would probably be yelling at clouds if I didn't work indoors.

If it brings you value

I have free Copilot through work and it is something I use very infrequently. It scarcely can do anything that I can’t do faster and more accurately.

Weird responses here so far. I'll try to actually answer the question.

I'm using copilot for 9 months at work now and it's crazy how it accelerates wiring code. I am writing class c code in C++ and rust, and it has become a staple tool like auto formatting. That being said, it cannot really do more abstract stuff like this architecture decisions.

Just try it for some time and see if it fits your use case. I'm hoping the local code models will catch up soon so I can get away from Microsoft, but until then, copilot it is.

You should try them all.

My experience with AI is it sucks and never gives the right answer, so no, good ol' regular web search for me.

When half your searches only gives you like 2-3 pages of result on Google, AI doesn't have nearly enough training material to be any good.

People are ditching Windows with good reasons. But, hey, de gustibus non disputandum est. my two cents: Your life is nice with microsoft products, but can be so much better without it.

I've found Copilot helpful for some research and queries where I'm not really sure what I'm looking for, or when I'm sure something exists but not its exact form, or exactly where it is.

It's unclear what you're intending to use Copilot for. I wouldn't trust it for anything unattended eg answering an email for me.

I treat it like a junior dev, it gets the gist but may make mistakes and I work it into something usable.

I also like it to save keystrokes, like when I'm building an object, it knows the structure of that object, so it ends up being tab/enter/tab/enter/... Same process for creating converters between types.

I don't expect much from it, but it does save time and keystrokes

Do not use any AI other than self-hosted offline, opensource models

What for? Usecases & constraints? Only then we could really answer.

Here is the consummate thread on whether to use microsoft copilot. some good tips in there… https://lemmy.world/post/14230502