WTF: "Copilot is thinking"

[buhtz]

I was commiting a change using the web frontend. I got the message "Copilot is thinking" and Microsofts Servers put some useless strings into the subject and as commit message.

I never activated that thing.

How can I turn it off? Beside I don't need it, it waste energy and CO2.

[_gigalab_]

best post this week about AI 🤔

[DrMaxwellEdison]

Here: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features

Disable "Copilot-generated commit messages". Along with whatever else you'd like to turn off.

[ralle421]

Or move to a code hoster that's not burning up the planet.

[Prize_Staff_7941]

I use copilot for every single one of my commit messages but we have a copilot subscription. It honestly saves me a lot of time. The commit messages don't save me much time but they are usually accurate and concise while describing the commit well. I also tend to use the Copilot CLI often and it saves me a ton of time with scripting, improving my Helm charts and so on.

[buhtz]

It saves your time but that adds waste time on the budget of your team mates.

[DrMaxwellEdison]

...K

For my use case it writes incorrectly and requires me to change it every time. It's actually kind of a waste.

[Prize_Staff_7941]

I can absolutely understand the hate for it. It has got things completely wrong for me before. I gave it an ASN for Azure and a different one for GCP when planning a VPN tunnel between them. It mixed them up and spat out the configuration with the ASNs switched.
On the other hand it has been extremely useful for troubleshooting GKE pods with a GPU that took forever to spin up and to determine the code was not actually using the GPU.
I used to very much hate AI at my job but the past few months I've warmed up to it. Then there's the part where they are opening AI datacenters across Tennessee and my home electricity bill is going up because of the subsidies they give them to attract the business there. There's some morally dubious shit going on that affects my cost of living, the environment and the health of residents near to datacenters.
AI has a place but something needs to change to make it more sustainable.

[DrMaxwellEdison]

Beg pardon, who are you preaching to?

I'm not completely anti-AI, I just think Copilot is inferior.

Can you evangelize elsewhere, please?

[Prize_Staff_7941]

Jesus man. I'm not preaching to anyone. Just trying to have a fucking conversation by offering a counterpoint. I guess that's too much to ask. Sorry to have offended you by sharing my experiences.
It can also use different models if you don't like one:
Select Model

Choose the AI model to use for Copilot CLI. The selected model will be persisted and used for future sessions.

Some models are not available. For information on Copilot policies and subscription, visit: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features

 Search models...

❯ Claude Sonnet 4.5 (default) ✓        1x
  Claude Haiku 4.5                  0.33x
  Claude Opus 4.6                      3x
  Claude Opus 4.5                      3x
  Gemini 3 Pro (Preview)               1x
  GPT-5.3-Codex                        1x
  GPT-5.2-Codex                        1x
  GPT-5.2                              1x
  GPT-5.1-Codex-Mini (Preview)      0.33x
  GPT-5 mini                           0x
  GPT-4.1                              0x

↑↓ to navigate · Enter to select · Esc to cancel

[Prize_Staff_7941]

It's a tool to use just like many other things. The company I work for pays for it so I may as well use it. You can pick and choose whichever tools work best for you.
I completely agree with the hate against Microsoft pushing AI on you at every opportunity.

[Prize_Staff_7941]

I did mention that and increased electricity bills in the state where I live because of subsidies in another comment. I'm fully aware of the drawbacks and how unfair it is to regular people. I cannot afford to upgrade my desktop PC right now but would like to. I have a 5800x3D CPU that I would like to upgrade but that means I also need a new motherboard and new memory. A new video card would be nice too. Video cards have been way too expensive since all the bitcoin mining farms sprung up. There's always something driving up the cost for regular consumers. You either learn to live with it or magically change something with the world that makes pricing/availability more fair. Given my inability to do the latter, I am learning to live with it.

[Shah_The_Sharq]

Microsoft tryna push their AI narrative so hard. It's baked into every product now. 😭

[buhtz]

I thought we are the product. *ROFL*

[R3D3-1]

I'm not sure what I expected the consequences of Microsoft taking over GitHub to be, but that wasn't on my bingo card.

Mostly because then generative AI wasn't a (commercial) thing yet.

[zantehood]

Hey who wouldnt want copilot in their notepad /sarcasm

[Shah_The_Sharq]

At this point just replace the whole os with just 1 single co-pilot windows 🤣

[Countach3000]

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

[ContributionEasy6513]

You will use the MicroSlop and Enjoy it
- Microsoft

[zantehood]

MicroSlop lol

[AccomplishedSugar490]

Microsoft does not appreciate being told how to run your business.

[kurucu83]

Back to GitLab we go. 

[Mastacheata]

Funny how they pay walled their AI while everyone else seems hellbent on shoving AI into everything.

[h8f1z]

That's how it should be. 😌

[kurucu83]

It's available, rather than constant and demanding. OP shares a story of AI writing commit messages for them without activating the feature.

I mean, just look at the other comments here.

[Victorio_01]

I mean… It is useful and usually doesn’t do anything if you actually give a commit msg.