GitHub, the renowned Microsoft-owned platform, has officially launched its AI-powered chatbot, Copilot Chat, making it available for general users. The announcement came through a blog post, emphasizing the platform’s commitment to enhancing developer experiences. Copilot Chat, driven by GPT-4, is now accessible for individual users at a subscription cost of $10 per month.
The platform encourages enterprises and organizations to empower their development teams by simply enabling the Copilot Chat setting. For those who have already provided access during the beta phase, no additional actions are required, ensuring a seamless transition.
Copilot Chat, described as a ChatGPT-like AI assistant, responds to developers’ natural language prompts, offering real-time guidance without necessitating a shift from the integrated development environment (IDE), as highlighted by GitHub. The AI tool boasts capabilities such as explaining intricate code structures, identifying security vulnerabilities, and even generating unit tests. GitHub emphasizes that Copilot Chat is personalized to each developer, aligning with their distinct coding practices.
Shuyin Zhao, Vice President of Product Management at GitHub, shared with TechCrunch that Copilot Chat represents the “most widely adopted AI developer tool in history,” marking a significant milestone for AI integration in the developer community.
However, GitHub’s adoption of Copilot Chat hasn’t been without legal scrutiny. The tool, powered by GPT-4 and trained on publicly available data (including some copyrighted or restricted content), has faced class action lawsuits from certain coders. Allegations include violations of open-source licensing and intellectual property rights.
When questioned about the potential for codebase owners to opt out of the training, Zhao explained that there is currently no new mechanism. Nevertheless, he suggested that owners seeking exclusion should consider making their repositories private to prevent inclusion in future training sets.
GitHub envisions Copilot Chat as a pivotal component of its AI-powered developer platform, ushering in a new era where natural language becomes the universal programming language. Available for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio, Copilot Chat is included in all GitHub Copilot plans. It is also offered at no cost to verified teachers, students, and maintainers of popular open-source projects, further promoting accessibility and collaboration within the developer community. The general availability of Copilot Chat marks a significant step forward in GitHub’s commitment to fostering innovation and efficiency in software development.
