[edit] I'm aware this is just a maintenance window, but still a >1 week severe degradation to the point of unusable without any warning whatsoever isn't a great reflection on how Github Copilot views their free tier users.
One reply in the thread provides their GitHub support case reply. Relevant quote:
> This week, we've had to take down some of our Copilot resources for maintenance. While we did our best to source extra capacity elsewhere, we've been forced to limit some free users for the period of time where one of our busiest models is out of
commission. We expect that this will cease to impact your use
of Copilot after the 16th.
Not just for students, but also OSS developers (who Github said they would give Copilot for free). I know this because I am an open-source developer, and over the weekend my Copilot was degraded to the point that it's virtually useless. (It was pretty annoying because I was doing Ludum Dare this weekend, and making extensive use of Copilot until it suddenly stopped working.)
The dumbest part about this whole thing is I would happily pay $10/month for Copilot if given the option. However, GitHub won't even let me switch to a paid plan! The setting in the admin panel simply says that it's already paid for and won't allow me to switch.
YES this exactly. I'd gladly pay, but because my account is under the student developer pack it won't give me the option. Let's hope they get this fixed soon.
I am fine with this. I personally have no interest in Copilot, but my understanding is its not small feat to offer a service like this. I think it would be understandable if the "free tier" was severely rate limited. GitHub has plenty of crappy business practices, this seems pretty tame. The honeymoon is over. If people want this technology, they can pay up.
Not sure if this is still the case, but last time I checked Microsoft Office had student discount, but was not generally free. This seems like a similar situation.
It's my understanding that open source software does not have equal access to code pilot for free. Isn't the quote free access contingent on the repository popularity?
Why? Learning to use AI tools properly will be far more valuable to these students in the workplace than any personal knowledge or skill they accumulate.
First off, this tool is still a new tool so "properly" does not exist yet and even if it did it likely won't be the same in a few years.
Second, we should be actually teaching programming and how to solve problems (and how to search for them, even if you do just copy and paste from stack overflow you had to understand enough to find it in the first place).
This is a shortcut that you should be using once you understand what you are actually writing.
Edit:
Or are you prepared to make the same argument that using something like chatGPT is perfectly fine for any papers students turn in because they are "learning to use AI tools properly"
>Or are you prepared to make the same argument that using something like chatGPT is perfectly fine for any papers students turn in because they are "learning to use AI tools properly"
Yes, because I believe all so-called creative fields will be dominated by AI in the near future. Programming jobs will mostly be replaced with jobs writing prompts for the AIs that write the code, stories, make the art, music, etc.
If people want to learn programming and problem solving, it would be better to do so online, and in their free time, as a hobby. At least in the US, that won't mean taking on a lifetime debt burden in the midst of a market working as aggressively as possible to make you obsolete.
> Yes, because I believe all so-called creative fields will be dominated by AI in the near future. Programming jobs will mostly be replaced with jobs writing prompts for the AIs that write the code, stories, make the art, music, etc.
I'm not convinced of that. Mostly in that for every "easy" tool to do things like make forms for input, store data and print reports... there has always been a limit to where you need an actual developer/programmer to do more. And in many cases, it's more work to customize the tooling than if it was written in a more programmer friendly environment to begin with.
Copilot is the calculator for a new age. In spite of everything my math teacher warned me about, if I am in a situation where I do not have immediate access to a calculator, I am not in a situation where I need to do quick math. We make determinations all the time about what amount of technology assistance is "ok" and what isn't and it usually correlates to what the educator had access to as a child. That's kind of weak, if you ask me. We need to stop pretending we're educating most people to live in a world that won't have immediate access to technology.
I think a calculator is very very different from an AI tool.
With a calculator you still had to have enough knowledge to properly input any formulas. In school you were also still forced to learn the fundamentals with less featured calculators.
Also a calculator was an accepted tool once you are out of school. AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry and have no business being in education.
It may be hard to believe, but this was the same argument I heard about calculators in the 80s. All that's really changed is that calculators are "normal." AI tools aren't going anywhere. They're just stackoverflow with fewer steps. Pretending they don't exist in education means students will be disadvantaged when they get to the real world and the thing that matters are results.
In high school, the first thing I did when I encountered a new type of assignment was write a small BASIC program on the TI83+ that solved this type. You could argue that if I can write a generalised solution to a problem, I've understood it. And that anyone copying my program would be cheating, but I wouldn't.
But it meant I got good at programming, but had limited math solving time.
> AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry
Those of my colleagues who dared try it greatly appreciate it.
The rest of us don't think they're cheating. They're just being productive.
> have no business being in education
You can say that.
But it won't change whether students use AI-powered learning tools.
These tools force us to rethink education so that we don't simply verify if people did something they could have got help with, since now help has become cheaper. Using a computer should not be considered cheating. It changes the game, and anyone stuck in the old game thinks it's cheating, while everyone in the new game are trying to do something else now.
I don't think I've ever taken a maths class where calculators were allowed (or made sense), from elementary through university.
The problems were usually designed to emphasize the thing you were trying to learn at the time, so once you were beyond simple arithmetic then "I think I'll need a calculator for this step" was a clue that you were on the wrong track anyway.
Every math class I've taken past elementary school and through college has required a graphing calculator. They don't care if you can do arithmetic in your head, they want to know that you know how to solve a problem, which steps to take. Though I think in this way, you can't even really compare copilot to a calculator, as it seems that copilot tries to know how to solve the problem.
I thought in middle school I was still using a normal calculator and was not allowed to use a graphing calculator. But now I don’t remember.
The other important part of that at least in my school, we had to use a graphing calculator but were also not allowed to use certain models that made things too easy.
That’s exactly my concern here.
Once you’re taking algebra it should be a assumption that given the time you can do basic multiplication, division, square roots and others given enough time but there isn’t any point when the more important part is solving other issues. That’s the simple stuff so why not make that easier as long as you learned how to get where you need to get.
But can you imagine having a tool like this when taking data structures?!?
It sounds like we were in very different classes. I was using a graphing calculator mid-way through high school for calculus and statistics. Before that, I was using a basic one for trig and geometry.
TI calculators were required from middle school forward albeit the ones with stored memory were not allowed because of answer storage. just a straight 83+ 84, you had to write and show the work but the arithmetic was definitely allowed via calculator.
upvote. this will be argued against but in 10 years we'll all have "generative answer tools" as a standard in all industries. The "autofilling" of industries.
Without speaking to the ethics of the situation in either direction, I will say as a student that the vast majority of my time spent programming is on open source, or random personal projects. Assignments are maybe 10% of the time maximum. At least among my circle of friends (a fairly enthusiastic crowd, not a perfect representation of the major) this seems to be typical.
37 comments
[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 93.4 ms ] threadFree alternatives to try: Codeium, Tabnine (trial), Replit (trial)
Another super long discussion of students having issues: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/43634
[edit] I'm aware this is just a maintenance window, but still a >1 week severe degradation to the point of unusable without any warning whatsoever isn't a great reflection on how Github Copilot views their free tier users.
> This week, we've had to take down some of our Copilot resources for maintenance. While we did our best to source extra capacity elsewhere, we've been forced to limit some free users for the period of time where one of our busiest models is out of commission. We expect that this will cease to impact your use of Copilot after the 16th.
This is also temporary based on a maintenance window and should return to normal on Monday.
The dumbest part about this whole thing is I would happily pay $10/month for Copilot if given the option. However, GitHub won't even let me switch to a paid plan! The setting in the admin panel simply says that it's already paid for and won't allow me to switch.
As a copilot skeptic this is the first compelling use case I've seen. Love it!
Not sure if this is still the case, but last time I checked Microsoft Office had student discount, but was not generally free. This seems like a similar situation.
I can't be the only one that is concerned by the title of this post?
Why is copilot being used by students? That seems... like that should be against every school's policy?
First off, this tool is still a new tool so "properly" does not exist yet and even if it did it likely won't be the same in a few years.
Second, we should be actually teaching programming and how to solve problems (and how to search for them, even if you do just copy and paste from stack overflow you had to understand enough to find it in the first place).
This is a shortcut that you should be using once you understand what you are actually writing.
Edit: Or are you prepared to make the same argument that using something like chatGPT is perfectly fine for any papers students turn in because they are "learning to use AI tools properly"
Yes, because I believe all so-called creative fields will be dominated by AI in the near future. Programming jobs will mostly be replaced with jobs writing prompts for the AIs that write the code, stories, make the art, music, etc.
If people want to learn programming and problem solving, it would be better to do so online, and in their free time, as a hobby. At least in the US, that won't mean taking on a lifetime debt burden in the midst of a market working as aggressively as possible to make you obsolete.
I'm not convinced of that. Mostly in that for every "easy" tool to do things like make forms for input, store data and print reports... there has always been a limit to where you need an actual developer/programmer to do more. And in many cases, it's more work to customize the tooling than if it was written in a more programmer friendly environment to begin with.
With a calculator you still had to have enough knowledge to properly input any formulas. In school you were also still forced to learn the fundamentals with less featured calculators.
Also a calculator was an accepted tool once you are out of school. AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry and have no business being in education.
Knowing, or not knowing, how to use autocomplete (ML powered or not) isn’t going to change their employability one iota.
But it meant I got good at programming, but had limited math solving time.
> AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry
Those of my colleagues who dared try it greatly appreciate it.
The rest of us don't think they're cheating. They're just being productive.
> have no business being in education
You can say that.
But it won't change whether students use AI-powered learning tools.
These tools force us to rethink education so that we don't simply verify if people did something they could have got help with, since now help has become cheaper. Using a computer should not be considered cheating. It changes the game, and anyone stuck in the old game thinks it's cheating, while everyone in the new game are trying to do something else now.
The problems were usually designed to emphasize the thing you were trying to learn at the time, so once you were beyond simple arithmetic then "I think I'll need a calculator for this step" was a clue that you were on the wrong track anyway.
The other important part of that at least in my school, we had to use a graphing calculator but were also not allowed to use certain models that made things too easy.
That’s exactly my concern here.
Once you’re taking algebra it should be a assumption that given the time you can do basic multiplication, division, square roots and others given enough time but there isn’t any point when the more important part is solving other issues. That’s the simple stuff so why not make that easier as long as you learned how to get where you need to get.
But can you imagine having a tool like this when taking data structures?!?