Back in October 2021, developers on the GitHub software development platform were given access to an exotic AI tool called Copilot. Created in association with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, Copilot uses the same generative AI technology to produce computer code on request, rather than text.
And it is pretty good at it. Github reckons that Copilot successfully autocompletes coding suggestions about 50 percent of the time, which should significantly increase the productivity of the millions of developers who now use it.
And that raises an interesting question: just how influential is Copilot set to become?
Now we get an answer thanks to the work of Thomas Dohmke at Github, Marco Iansiti at Harvard Business School and Greg Richards at Keystone.AI who have measured how developers are using Copilot. Their conclusion is that the AI-powered coding is producing a sea change in the software industry that is set to turbocharge ...
