{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/github-copilot-ai-pair-programmer-asset-or","title":"GitHub Copilot AI pair programmer: Asset or Liability?","arxiv_id":"2206.15331","date":"2022-06-30","proceeding":null,"authors":["Arghavan Moradi Dakhel","Vahid Majdinasab","Amin Nikanjam","Foutse khomh","Michel C. Desmarais","Zhen Ming","Jiang"],"abstract":"Automatic program synthesis is a long-lasting dream in software engineering. Recently, a promising Deep Learning (DL) based solution, called Copilot, has been proposed by OpenAI and Microsoft as an industrial product. Although some studies evaluate the correctness of Copilot solutions and report its issues, more empirical evaluations are necessary to understand how developers can benefit from it effectively. In this paper, we study the capabilities of Copilot in two different programming tasks: (i) generating (and reproducing) correct and efficient solutions for fundamental algorithmic problems, and (ii) comparing Copilot's proposed solutions with those of human programmers on a set of programming tasks. For the former, we assess the performance and functionality of Copilot in solving selected fundamental problems in computer science, like sorting and implementing data structures. In the latter, a dataset of programming problems with human-provided solutions is used. The results show that Copilot is capable of providing solutions for almost all fundamental algorithmic problems, however, some solutions are buggy and non-reproducible. Moreover, Copilot has some difficulties in combining multiple methods to generate a solution. Comparing Copilot to humans, our results show that the correct ratio of humans' solutions is greater than Copilot's suggestions, while the buggy solutions generated by Copilot require less effort to be repaired.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.15331v2","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.15331v2.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"github-copilot-ai-pair-programmer-asset-or","repo_url":"https://github.com/copilot-eval-replication-package/copilotevaluation","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"none","reach":{"status":"ok","spdx":"Apache-2.0"}}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"program-synthesis","task_name":"Program Synthesis"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2206.15331","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2206.15331"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/copilot-eval-replication-package/copilotevaluation","reach":{"status":"ok","spdx":"Apache-2.0"}}],"summary":{"ran":1},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":1,"ran":1,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":0,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"4e2d817f03e60189","entry":"paths_list","repo":"copilot-eval-replication-package/copilotevaluation","repo_kind":"official","path":"CoPilot_on_Algorithm_Design/algo_BLEU_score.py","file_url":"https://github.com/copilot-eval-replication-package/copilotevaluation/blob/HEAD/CoPilot_on_Algorithm_Design/algo_BLEU_score.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"4e2d817f03e60189"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}