Copilot Chat has been officially launched by GitHub, serving as an assisting tool for developers resembling ChatGPT, after a limited trial period. The tool operates through a chat interface integrated in Microsoft’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE), enabling developers to ask questions and receive real-time guidance on code.
Copilot Chat is available for free to educators, students, and supervisors on specific open-source projects, and is offered to regular users for a monthly fee of $10.
Copilot Chat is designed to utilize the GPT-4 engine from OpenAI specifically for software development scenarios. Developers can request explanations of concepts, identify security vulnerabilities, or write unit tests using natural language.
On the flip side, the use of GPT-4 has raised concerns about intellectual property rights, as it has been trained on public data, some of which are copyrighted. GitHub responded that fair use law protects them from copyright claims. However, some developers have filed a collective lawsuit accusing the company of violating open-source licenses and intellectual property rights.
GitHub emphasized the importance of humans reviewing any code proposed by artificial intelligence.
The public release of Copilot Chat marks a significant advancement in software development using artificial intelligence, but also sparks debates about data ethics and application permissions. GitHub will need to address these concerns by developing and enhancing its tools to remain at the forefront in this field.
