GitHub has announced the general availability of Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, for all users. Previously available in beta for individual Copilot subscribers, the AI-driven tool is now accessible in the sidebar of Microsoft’s Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), Visual Studio Code, and Visual Studio. It’s included in GitHub Copilot’s paid tiers and remains free for verified teachers, students, and maintainers of certain open-source projects.
VP of product management at GitHub, Shuyin Zhao, emphasized that Copilot Chat represents the most widely adopted AI developer tool, marking just the beginning of GitHub’s offerings. Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, fine-tuned for development scenarios, Copilot Chat assists developers by explaining concepts, detecting vulnerabilities, and writing unit tests in real-time, all via natural language prompts.
Despite the advancements, GitHub faces scrutiny over potential open source licensing and IP violations, as generative AI models like GPT-4 are trained on publicly available data, including copyrighted content. GitHub suggests making repositories private to prevent inclusion in future training sets, a solution likely to be met with resistance from developers who rely on public access for collaboration and bug hunting.
Generative AI’s tendency to “hallucinate” poses additional challenges, particularly in coding, where inaccuracies or outdated information can lead to less secure code. While GPT-4 claims to perform better against hallucinations and includes exploit-mitigating features, GitHub underscores the need for human review of AI-suggested code.
The broader launch of Copilot Chat comes as GitHub navigates making the tool profitable amidst the high costs of running AI models, a challenge faced across the industry. Competitors like Amazon’s CodeWhisperer and various startups are also enhancing their offerings, adding pressure on GitHub to continually innovate and improve Copilot, ensuring it remains a valuable tool for developers seeking to build better and more secure software efficiently.
