OpenAI and GitHub Launch AI Copilot to Write and Complete Code
GitHub and OpenAI introduce Copilot, an AI assistant that writes entire functions based on simple comments. The tool relies on a specialized GPT-3 model trained on billions of lines of public code.
GitHub and OpenAI launch a new AI tool called Copilot that takes code completion to an unprecedented level. Unlike traditional programming tools that only suggest variable or function names, Copilot writes entire blocks of code or complete functions based on a simple documentation comment.
The system is powered by Codex, a specialized version of the GPT-3 model that OpenAI trained on billions of lines of public code. Researchers collected 159 GB of unique Python files from 54 million public GitHub repositories to teach the 12-billion parameter model how to program intelligently.
While the technology significantly outperforms previous code completion models, it also sparks major controversy in the tech community. Critics raise serious concerns about the ethical implications of training on publicly available code regardless of software licenses and the risk of the AI reproducing copyrighted material or biased outputs.