Jon Martin, Ph.D. 🦕
TaggartWhen we fight, we win
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/30/github_copilot_ads_pull_requests
The Doctor@mttaggart What are they doing now that we're not paying attention to?
tootbruteHearing feedback from the community following Manson's post and the kerfuffle it generated, Rogers said, has helped him realize that "on reflection," letting Copilot make changes to PRs written by a human without their knowledge "was the wrong judgement call."
@tootbrute @drwho How much Copilot slurry have they been forced to swallow; how many Ludovico Technique sessions have they been forced to endure, to arrive at "Consent? Weird idea, but sure?"
Dźwiedziu@mttaggart
The problem is that number might be zero, and they're a person you should cover your drink around.
The “AI” zombie bite is just a tattoo at that point.
tj usiyan@tootbrute @drwho @mttaggart I promise that I am not trying to be dramatic when I ask “why did this need reflection to realize and why isn’t Rogers being fired for the fact that it did?”
@griotspeak @tootbrute @mttaggart A lot of people are just not capable of doing so. We're conditioned to not even know about it from a young age, culturally.
@griotspeak
Because his employer earned money from those ads.
François Galea@dzwiedziu @griotspeak @tootbrute @drwho @mttaggart I'd say they have to quickly push the enshittification level to 11 so that they may hope it's going to be profitable one day and they are not shoving so many B$ into the bubble for nothing.
They might lose most of their users in the process, but being useful to people never was the intention anyway.
They might lose most of their users in the process, but being useful to people never was the intention anyway.
Su_G@tootbrute
I want to say: what a silly thing to say! It wasn’t a “judgement call” at all! 🤷♀️ But I’m just responding to the quote & nothing more than that…
I want to say: what a silly thing to say! It wasn’t a “judgement call” at all! 🤷♀️ But I’m just responding to the quote & nothing more than that…
RiaResists@mttaggart
Good!!
Good!!
Ellie@mttaggart wait what. I thought this announcement was a crummy april fools prank.
Nazo@mttaggart The catch is that we have to keep fighting. They keep doing stuff like this, but often enough as soon as everyone has forgotten they slip and implement the thing anyway after supposedly changing their minds. It has been Microsoft's playbook in particular for some time now.
The Penguin of Evil@mttaggart it's techbros so it's never no - it's later.
Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦@etchedpixels @mttaggart Exactly. All that can be won is a temporary reprieve. Use it to migrate away.
GeoffThe standard reply from these guys is always "Upon further reflection, and from feedback from our community, we have realized that fucking with your shit was the wrong call." Same with that Grammerly AI-journalist thing.
nullagentWhat in the fresh hell?
Kevin RussellNow retreat. Get the hell out. Make a new place that can't be seized by our lords.
Phil Stevens 
@mttaggart It's still a good day to spin up a Forgejo box and #gitGone
Glitzersachen... until you loose. Frankly, this always follows the same pattern: Provocative change, backing down and after this gauging of the public opinion slowly boiling frog release of the very same feature over a couple of months or years. While our attention is elsewhere.
We only win, if the perpetrators cannot commit future deeds. Going back to the status quo is no win, because the status quo can be attacked again.
"Tim Rogers, principal product manager for Copilot at GitHub, took to Hacker News on Monday to say that giving Copilot the ability to add "tips" to PRs was intended "to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow."
Hearing feedback from the community following Manson's post and the kerfuffle it generated, Rogers said, has helped him realize that "on reflection," letting Copilot make changes to PRs written by a human without their knowledge "was the wrong judgement call." "
What a dishonest take. "help developers". LOL.
"Was the wrong judgement call".
No. It was an eklatant breach of trust. From which there is no painless recovery. Full stop.
You (remaining clients of github) should just refuse to do business with Github until Tim Rogers has been fired ignominiously (without a golden parachute).
Oberst Enzian@mttaggart For now.
Pawlicker@mttaggart sent from my iphone
BurritoSommelier@mttaggart they’ve proven they can do whatever the fuck they want and not lose enough customers to meaningfully change their behavior (beyond just trying again a bit later more subtly) - just a quick little “oops, our bad - we thought we were helping and you’d appreciate this!”
Elias Mårtenson@mttaggart I mean, to be fair they asked an llm to update their message. They get what they asked for I guess?
They only removed it once they realised it's the best ad against using these tools they could possibly have created.
Luke Miller@mttaggart Shocking that it even happened
garthoid (he/him)Yet another reason to use an alternative
Negative Kelvin@mttaggart There's "we should be graceful and forgive" and then there's "I can't trust anyone who _ever_ thought this would be okay."
Git fucked.
nojhan, Cassandre de l’analyse systémique@mttaggart We can’t win fighting with the enemy weapons.
Paolo Redaelli@mttaggart
Actually I think that the best answer is not ~fighting~ begging but using other facilities
Actually I think that the best answer is not ~fighting~ begging but using other facilities
@mttaggart
> Tim Rogers, principal product manager for Copilot at GitHub, took to Hacker News on Monday to say that giving Copilot the ability to add "tips" to PRs was intended "to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow."
This is how quickly this degenerated into just making money.
And I can safely assume that because of “AI” it was that quick.
mike morris@mttaggart
Don't be misled by the corp-speak nonsense; this was just a trial balloon to calibrate where, how, and how often they can deliver ads through #SlopHub. Ads *WILL* return, just maybe not in PRs.
The only correct response is to move the hell off SlopHub.