Here's where you go to tell GitHub that it can’t train CoPilot on your code & interactions: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features

Just sayin’

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@timbray link that scrolls the setting in question at the top of the view: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features#copilot-telemetry-policy
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@timbray It's silly to pretend that this toggle has any actual effect.

@soc @timbray I'm ~90% certain that setting just disables training on your copilot sessions. They absolutely 100% have already trained on all of your public repos by declaring it fair use. I suspect most of the noise is people who don't use copilot and are upset about the latter.

GitHub is managed by Microsoft's CoreAI group. They couldn't be clearer about what they expect in return for free hosting at this point.

@slembcke @soc @timbray "The Pile" is a common training set that includes a snapshot of everything publicly visible on GitHub. "The Stack" is a less common training set that includes most permissively licensed things (non-GPL, e.g.) on GitHub, subject to opt-out.

One judge roughly said training is "fair use", but the next judge rejected that claim. It's quite uncertain right now, legally. (Both were U.S. judges; I'm OOtL for other countries.)

There are a lot of people that are going to scrape anything publicly available, and then come up with a ethical / legal justification later, and being off the biggest hosting sites might help avoid that.

@timbray this link has documentation on what is likely a more comprehensive solution...

https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/how-tos/account-management/deleting-your-personal-account

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@timbray I was curious about this yesterday, a friend confirmed the new default (for new accounts) is enabled. I assume it's hoping to catch future users off guard.

I don't believe they will respect the toggle in the future anyway

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@timbray I no longer have code in Github, but turned off those settings anyway. Hopefully, someone at Redmond is keeping track of the number of people who do.

(because some people like to keep their account to interact with important projects who remain on Github, for the "delete your account" sorts).

@timbray Where is the "and delete any historical usage of it from before you got around to asking my permission you greedy thieving bastards" button?

@Crell @timbray

You do this by going to the server farm with a pocket nuke. Maybe you need to delete at multiple locations.

@glitzersachen @Crell @timbray
I think Trump's foreign policy is designed to do this for his Epstein emails.
@timbray If you disable it for your account, does it disable it for all forks of your code?
@timbray If you're a part of an organization that has bought into Copilot Business, you can't do that. 😒

@Anibyl @timbray

Obv don't use your personal account for that. Create one for the specific purpose.

@Anibyl @timbray so don't comingle personal and business?

@kkarhan @Anibyl @timbray

Absolutely. You are not allowed to do this in the usual corporate environments anymore, anyway.

@timbray No. You get the fuck out, that’s the only way.
@timbray I think this toggle is about training Copilot on your use of Copilot. They'll continue to train on your code regardless.
@timbray my code is so bad I'll keep the default setting in order to hurt big tech companies
@timbray even better option is to leave github, there are plenty of alternatives - gitlab.com, codeberg.org, gitea.com. I left github in 2018 after they fell under micro$oft.
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@timbray Why are these on by default?? I guess GitHub execs don't believe in asking for consent.
@timbray thank you.
And to everyone who might use copilot in the future, you're welcome (because my janky 10 year old data science course projects will not skew your tool)
@timbray I moved my ok-ish code to @Codeberg so GitHub is welcome to train CoPilot with my leftovers and make it a little dumber.
@timbray Thanks a lot for the hint! I've totally missed that.
@timbray life has been peaceful since I turned that off