Github Copilot suggesting links
A potentially very useful but probably unintended and unpolished feature of GitHub Copilot is that it can suggest related links. That is, if you paste a link, then on a new line type https://
and wait for a second, Copilot often suggests a link or two. The results, at the moment, aren’t great.
Here are some examples that are representative of my experience so far.
Amazon
It seems to work well for Amazon links some (~30%) of the time.
- Original https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Sam-Newman/dp/1492034029
- Good https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321
- Good https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Domain-Driven-Design-Tackling-Complexity-Software/dp/0321125215
- Good https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Building-Microservices-Designing-Fine-Grained-Systems/dp/1491950358
- Good https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Release-It-Production-Ready-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/0978739213
- Good https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Building-Evolutionary-Architectures-Support-Constant/dp/1491986360
StackOverflow
StackOverflow recommendations only look correct. For example:
- Original https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43833049/how-to-make-fixed-content-go-above-ios-keyboard
- Not entirely related https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1145850/how-to-get-height-of-iphone-keyboard
The link looks convincing, and the issue is kind of similar. But not really.
Besides, the slug at the end of the URL is made-up.
I’ve noticed this on more than one occasion: it generates a valid link, but changes the slug to make it look like it’s more related than it is.
HackerNews
- Original https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rognjen
- Completely random, but it’s a comment not a profile https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27847800
Another one:
- Original https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35809807
- It generated the snippet above, including the comment 😅
Copilot seems to know the structure of HackerNews links, but does not know any of the content. And since the links do not have a slug, there’s nothing it can use.
The Guardian
I expected The Guardian links to work well because they have the entire title in the slug, but, alas, no.
- Original https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/02/ai-use-breast-cancer-screening-study-preliminary-results
- Hallucinated, but maybe because it’s such a recent article https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/02/ai-use-breast-cancer-screening-study-preliminary-results
Another one:
- Original https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/09/not-for-sale-sydney-opera-house-racing-ad-sparks-protests-australia
- Nothing
Wikipedia
I definitely expected it to work excellently with Wikipedia, but it’s slightly worse than Amazon.
Another one:
- Original https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine
- Not bad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery
This site
- Original https://ognjen.io/dont-be-clever-be-clear/
- OK?, but not really Google I/O 2009 - The Myth of the Genius Programmer on YouTube
The video exists, but I don’t understand why Copilot might consider it related.
Another example:
- Original https://ognjen.io/software-that-abstracts-away-a-skill/
- Hallucinated, it’s not a real page https://ognjen.io/why-i-dont-use-graphql/