I accept that is how you are interpreting it and I can see the argument. But Github isnt trying to get one over in their messaging.
And besides I just dont agree with the idea that it takes the developer out of the loop. Whose controlling this better version of Copilot? Whose goals is it advancing? The developer.
Nobody wants to pay a bunch of desk workers six figures to make their business go brr, but they currently they have no choice. Trust me, every executive resents this to their core and they want all the programmers to go away - including github executives.
20 years ago you would hire a few expensive architects who would try and design the product in so much detail cheap jr programmers could build it. It didn't go well.
4GL languages tried to abstract away all the hard stuff - again it didn't go well.
"Low code" was big just before the AI thing. It didn't go well.
Attempts are outsourcing are constant.
Now we have LLMs. So far this has come the closest to the dream of eliminating expensive programmers. We'll see how it goes.
The blog post goes through more than what I mentioned in my comment. For example:
> When the product we are building under the codename Project Padawan ships later this year, it will allow you to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, using any of the GitHub clients, and have it produce fully tested pull requests. Once a task is finished, Copilot will assign human reviewers to the PR, and work to resolve feedback they add.
How is that not trying to replace at least a small section of junior/boilerplate developers?
The developer might be the one who listens to the product team, maybe even creates the issue and finally reviews the code before it gets merged. But I'm having a hard time imagining the flow above as "Pair programming" or a developer working with a "co-pilot", as they're trying to say it's all about.
This was a danger before AI ever became a thing. If that’s all someone is doing, there was always a danger of being outsourced to someone who would work for less than you would.
And today in 2025, ignoring AI, there are thousands of generic framework developers struggling to get a job because every job they apply to has thousands of applications and companies can choose any good enough developer.
It was always hard to break the can’t get a job <-> don’t have experience cycle. Now it’s going to be harder.
The solution at least for awhile is to run closer to the customer/stakeholder.