6 ms·

Pen, a GPL Copilot for Emacs

162 points by mullikine 5y ago

mullikine 5y ago
Copilot was not the first GPT-3 editor out there. Now that the editor thinks for us, free software is more important now than ever before. A transparent pipeline from thought to paper. I would like some assistance.
- yewenjie 5y ago
  How useful do you think has it been, for your own personal use cases?
- cle 5y ago
  I agree, the thought of hoards of developers sending their code to Microsoft (or AWS via CodeGuru) to train their proprietary semantic model is disturbing, because of the potential network effects. They suck right now and have a lot of problems, and I hope they either stay that way, or that something open like this supersedes them.
  - corobo 5y ago
    Hold up. Is everyone talking about this thing as if they're going to use it on proprietary code? I only ever pictured using it on open source stuff if it turned up decent If folks are looking at this thing like "that's going right on my work PC" I would highly recommend reviewing your IT usage policy first. Yikes.
    - atatatat 5y ago
      I was thinking the opposite, for the audience you're describing. "Can't get into trouble if it's never published publicly"...which is wrong, obviously.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- smoldesu 5y ago
  How do you expect to ensure a "transparent pipeline" when GPT-3 itself is not fully transparent?
  - btdmaster 5y ago
    Unlike GPT-3, GPT-j from EleutherAI is a free dataset: https://6b.eleuther.ai/ https://6b.eleuther.ai/. This is supported according to the README. Edit: it may not be supported right now, but it is mentioned in the Goals section.
    - abecedarius 5y ago
      I gave 6b.eleuther.ai a try on the Copilot fetch-tweets example, several days ago, and it spat out a similar completion: https://twitter.com/abecedarius/status/1408862135267037186 https://twitter.com/abecedarius/status/1408862135267037186 It took several seconds and added some logic I didn't ask for, but this is already interesting.
exdsq 5y ago
Side note but what is going on with this projects commits?
- globular-toast 5y ago
  Looks like they are auto-generated on every save.
  - lordgrenville 5y ago
    What a terrifying way to work!
    - IshKebab 5y ago
      For single author projects it's reasonable.
    - Kiro 5y ago
      Why? I also use commit and push as my save with nonsense commit messages. I can't trust that my computer is still booting up tomorrow.
  - fulafel 5y ago
    Interesting to see someone doing this, it often comes up that we should actually have more levels of version control granularity than merges and commits. Just need an application of AI to generate good commit messages here :)
    - exdsq 5y ago
      That could be interesting but the right structure (off the top of my head) would be a hierarchical layer - not this flat monstrosity!
    - globular-toast 5y ago
      I use the "undo" functionality in my editor. In emacs it's a complete tree of changes so you can't really lose anything.
jkaplowitz 5y ago
This should probably have its title edited to include the prefix Show HN, since it's posted by the main author. But, neat!
rubyn00bie 5y ago
Should this say “GPT” instead of “GPL” in the title? I find it pretty confusing right now.
- fossislife 5y ago
  Got me confused, too. It's GPL-licensed and uses GPT.
  - steviedotboston 5y ago
    but what about GPK (Garbage Pail Kids) ?
- astrange 5y ago
  I thought it was a model only trained on GPL code, which would be interesting but I guess would cost a few million to make.
flurie 5y ago
The author had a rather colorful post to /r/emacs that has been edited significantly since, but some of the color remains in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/oapa2l/help_building_penel_gpt3_for_emacs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/oapa2l/help_building...
- kstrauser 5y ago
  Some of the comments almost seem like the author is using GPT for lots of things.
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    And seems to be praising GPT/Copilot as being amazing, the future, etc? Though with so many deleted comments i'm still quite confused. Regardless the author and I disagree strongly about the actual usefulness of Copilot. I do think ML could be a huge boon for many human applications, like coding, but it's far far from it. Furthermore Copilot's specific implementation seems to leave much to be desired[1]. To me ML is an infant right now and we're metaphorically and literally expecting that infant to drive a car. ML is in a weird, weird place. [1]: https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  If he is wrong and such tools are of small import then it isn't highly important that Emacs has such functionality. If he is correct and such functionality is essential then all of existing Emacs becomes merely a freemium teaser for Emacs 2021 Professional Edition with AI where they will provide only a fraction of the total value but collect most of the money from the ecosystem. Worse its not even a license forever, nor even for a period of time. It's priced by the word. https://beta.openai.com/pricing https://beta.openai.com/pricing
Voloskaya 5y ago
It's not a "Copilot for Emacs" though? It's a layer on top of language models APIs made for Emacs. So, if you use GPT-3, it will not be finetuned further on code like Copilot, only pretrained on data that did contain some code, and also the GPL portion only concerns that API-calling layer, not what the model was trained on, or what it can output (which is what the GPL related mess about Copilot is about).
jancsika 5y ago
Is there a tool where I can type garbage and it walks linearly through a git history of creating a new project, compiling, cloning, committing, etc. until my new copy is a replica of the original? E.g., I set it to vue.js codebase. Then for each key I press it will: 1. create a new file if we're at the beginning 2. for each key pressed, output a character for that file 3. once the file has been "typed", close that one and open the next file and repeat. 4. once the whole enchilada has been "typed", then each key press will spell out "git commit..." on the command line then enter 5. once committed, each key pressed will spell out "git push..." then enter 6. etc. until I've typed the whole history of vue.js! Maybe a "turbo mode" so I can set N characters for each character I type...
- doix 5y ago
  That instantly made me think of this: https://hackertyper.net/ https://hackertyper.net/
  - jancsika 5y ago
    Ooh, almost there! You know, there could be a kind of "bloat battle" game from this. * player one tries to keep smashing the keyboard to "write" code and "commit" new features until the program can read email * player two smashes keys to add low-effort issues to the tracker, post FUD to the mailing list to slow down the process, and add subtly wrong features for review on merge requests Like hungry hippos except it translates directly to real world experience
- mullikine 5y ago
  I'm trying to get it going in a docker container asap.. I was slaving away on that today
  - jancsika 5y ago
    Bonus-- if you pull it off I think it technically qualifies as a quine. :)
goodpoint 5y ago
Can we have a Vim plugin pretty please?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin Like this?
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin/blob/master/LICENSE That is closed source. Also Kite does not seem comparable with GPT-3 or github copilot.
lawwantsin17 5y ago
More wasted hours on this nonsense I see.
floatingatoll 5y ago
Is this submission title a typo for GPT?

162 points by mullikine 5y ago

Copilot was not the first GPT-3 editor out there. Now that the editor thinks for us, free software is more important now than ever before. A transparent pipeline from thought to paper. I would like some assistance.

yewenjie 5y ago
How useful do you think has it been, for your own personal use cases?
cle 5y ago
I agree, the thought of hoards of developers sending their code to Microsoft (or AWS via CodeGuru) to train their proprietary semantic model is disturbing, because of the potential network effects. They suck right now and have a lot of problems, and I hope they either stay that way, or that something open like this supersedes them.
- corobo 5y ago
  Hold up. Is everyone talking about this thing as if they're going to use it on proprietary code? I only ever pictured using it on open source stuff if it turned up decent If folks are looking at this thing like "that's going right on my work PC" I would highly recommend reviewing your IT usage policy first. Yikes.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    I was thinking the opposite, for the audience you're describing. "Can't get into trouble if it's never published publicly"...which is wrong, obviously.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
smoldesu 5y ago
How do you expect to ensure a "transparent pipeline" when GPT-3 itself is not fully transparent?
- btdmaster 5y ago
  Unlike GPT-3, GPT-j from EleutherAI is a free dataset: https://6b.eleuther.ai/ https://6b.eleuther.ai/. This is supported according to the README. Edit: it may not be supported right now, but it is mentioned in the Goals section.
  - abecedarius 5y ago
    I gave 6b.eleuther.ai a try on the Copilot fetch-tweets example, several days ago, and it spat out a similar completion: https://twitter.com/abecedarius/status/1408862135267037186 https://twitter.com/abecedarius/status/1408862135267037186 It took several seconds and added some logic I didn't ask for, but this is already interesting.

exdsq 5y ago

Side note but what is going on with this projects commits?

globular-toast 5y ago
Looks like they are auto-generated on every save.
- lordgrenville 5y ago
  What a terrifying way to work!
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    For single author projects it's reasonable.
  - Kiro 5y ago
    Why? I also use commit and push as my save with nonsense commit messages. I can't trust that my computer is still booting up tomorrow.
- fulafel 5y ago
  Interesting to see someone doing this, it often comes up that we should actually have more levels of version control granularity than merges and commits. Just need an application of AI to generate good commit messages here :)
  - exdsq 5y ago
    That could be interesting but the right structure (off the top of my head) would be a hierarchical layer - not this flat monstrosity!
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    I use the "undo" functionality in my editor. In emacs it's a complete tree of changes so you can't really lose anything.

jkaplowitz 5y ago

This should probably have its title edited to include the prefix Show HN, since it's posted by the main author. But, neat!

rubyn00bie 5y ago

Should this say “GPT” instead of “GPL” in the title? I find it pretty confusing right now.

fossislife 5y ago
Got me confused, too. It's GPL-licensed and uses GPT.
- steviedotboston 5y ago
  but what about GPK (Garbage Pail Kids) ?
astrange 5y ago
I thought it was a model only trained on GPL code, which would be interesting but I guess would cost a few million to make.

flurie 5y ago

The author had a rather colorful post to /r/emacs that has been edited significantly since, but some of the color remains in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/oapa2l/help_building_penel_gpt3_for_emacs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/oapa2l/help_building...

kstrauser 5y ago
Some of the comments almost seem like the author is using GPT for lots of things.
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  And seems to be praising GPT/Copilot as being amazing, the future, etc? Though with so many deleted comments i'm still quite confused. Regardless the author and I disagree strongly about the actual usefulness of Copilot. I do think ML could be a huge boon for many human applications, like coding, but it's far far from it. Furthermore Copilot's specific implementation seems to leave much to be desired[1]. To me ML is an infant right now and we're metaphorically and literally expecting that infant to drive a car. ML is in a weird, weird place. [1]: https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309
michaelmrose 5y ago
If he is wrong and such tools are of small import then it isn't highly important that Emacs has such functionality. If he is correct and such functionality is essential then all of existing Emacs becomes merely a freemium teaser for Emacs 2021 Professional Edition with AI where they will provide only a fraction of the total value but collect most of the money from the ecosystem. Worse its not even a license forever, nor even for a period of time. It's priced by the word. https://beta.openai.com/pricing https://beta.openai.com/pricing

Voloskaya 5y ago

It's not a "Copilot for Emacs" though? It's a layer on top of language models APIs made for Emacs. So, if you use GPT-3, it will not be finetuned further on code like Copilot, only pretrained on data that did contain some code, and also the GPL portion only concerns that API-calling layer, not what the model was trained on, or what it can output (which is what the GPL related mess about Copilot is about).

jancsika 5y ago

Is there a tool where I can type garbage and it walks linearly through a git history of creating a new project, compiling, cloning, committing, etc. until my new copy is a replica of the original? E.g., I set it to vue.js codebase. Then for each key I press it will: 1. create a new file if we're at the beginning 2. for each key pressed, output a character for that file 3. once the file has been "typed", close that one and open the next file and repeat. 4. once the whole enchilada has been "typed", then each key press will spell out "git commit..." on the command line then enter 5. once committed, each key pressed will spell out "git push..." then enter 6. etc. until I've typed the whole history of vue.js! Maybe a "turbo mode" so I can set N characters for each character I type...

doix 5y ago
That instantly made me think of this: https://hackertyper.net/ https://hackertyper.net/
- jancsika 5y ago
  Ooh, almost there! You know, there could be a kind of "bloat battle" game from this. * player one tries to keep smashing the keyboard to "write" code and "commit" new features until the program can read email * player two smashes keys to add low-effort issues to the tracker, post FUD to the mailing list to slow down the process, and add subtly wrong features for review on merge requests Like hungry hippos except it translates directly to real world experience
mullikine 5y ago
I'm trying to get it going in a docker container asap.. I was slaving away on that today
- jancsika 5y ago
  Bonus-- if you pull it off I think it technically qualifies as a quine. :)

goodpoint 5y ago

Can we have a Vim plugin pretty please?

smoldesu 5y ago
https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin Like this?
- goodpoint 5y ago
  https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/kiteco/vim-plugin/blob/master/LICENSE That is closed source. Also Kite does not seem comparable with GPT-3 or github copilot.

lawwantsin17 5y ago

More wasted hours on this nonsense I see.

floatingatoll 5y ago

Is this submission title a typo for GPT?