GitHub’s Copilot Chat, a programming-centric chatbot, is now generally available for all users. This AI-powered chatbot, similar to ChatGPT, was previously only accessible to organizations subscribed to Copilot for Business and individual Copilot customers in beta. However, it is now accessible to all users.
Key Takeaway
GitHub’s Copilot Chat, powered by GPT-4, is now available to all users, providing real-time guidance for developers. However, concerns about copyright, open source licensing, and potential insecure code snippets remain.
Copilot Chat Integration
Copilot Chat is accessible in the sidebar of Microsoft’s IDEs, Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio. It is included as part of GitHub Copilot’s paid tiers and is free for verified teachers, students, and maintainers of certain open source projects.
Features of Copilot Chat
The chatbot is powered by GPT-4, OpenAI’s flagship generative AI model, fine-tuned specifically for developer scenarios. Developers can use natural language to prompt Copilot Chat for real-time guidance, such as explaining concepts, detecting vulnerabilities, or writing unit tests.
Concerns and Competition
Despite its capabilities, Copilot Chat has faced concerns about copyright and open source licensing. Additionally, there are challenges related to the potential for generative AI models to introduce insecure code snippets. GitHub acknowledges the importance of human review for AI-suggested code.
GitHub’s Copilot faces competition from Amazon’s CodeWhisperer and other startups like Magic, Tabnine, Codegen, and Laredo, as well as open source models like Meta’s Code Llama and Hugging Face’s and ServiceNow’s StarCoder.
