Of all the jobs that generative AI could change in the future, one of those most impacted might hit close to home for the tech’s creators: software engineering.

Code repository GitHub is leading this change with its Copilot AI programming companion, which seeks to assist coders in all sorts of ways, from suggesting autocomplete-style snippets of code to helping write documentation. And as GitHub’s VP of communities, Stormy Peters is tasked with helping developers understand and use tools like these.

We caught up with Peters to talk about how AI is changing coding, how it can play a role in educating the next generation of software developers, and the challenges around funding open-source programs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does AI mean for communities and developers on GitHub?

So AI is obviously a hot topic and developers in general really like it—they’re really excited about it. It’s new technology, and new technology is fun, but it also helps them do their job better. We know that developers that use Copilot are happier, and they write code 55% faster. They don’t have to remember all the syntax or write out all the boring code; they can just get Copilot to do those parts for them, and they can focus on how the pieces go together. So it’s really a “wow” factor.

Where I think it’s really interesting is the people learning to write code in the education space—how do we use this AI to help them learn faster? We’ve been working with professors and educators to understand what this means for them. And it’s been a really interesting journey. Because in the beginning, they were like, “Oh, it’s helping them cheat; turn it off. How do I turn this thing off? How do I get rid of it?” They felt a little bit like that with code that was open-source on GitHub too, like, “Can you make this so my students can’t see that?”

But we’ve really seen them turn around just in a few months.

Keep reading here.—PK

What if you could turn your ideas into designs just like *that*? No storyboarding, extensive concepting, or coding—just cool designs, ready when ya need ’em.

Meet Magic Studio from Canva . All you have to do is upload your text prompt, media, or desired content idea, and Magic Studio will whip up a custom design in seconds.

All it takes is one flick of the wrist (and a little AI assistance) to take your design process to the next level. Magic Studio enhances creativity, streamlines workflows, and saves you a whole lotta time.

And Canva’s got a lot more magic for you—like Magic Edit, Magic Grab, and Magic Write—to help you strike the right tone every time.

Work your magic.

Developers expect generative AI to be a big part of the future of software robotics, experts said at Automation Anywhere’s Imagine conference in September—it’s just a matter of how ready the tech is.

Sumit Johar, Automation Anywhere CIO, told IT Brew that since the end of 2021, generative AI has exploded in popularity precisely because it was clear it wasn’t a flash in the pan.

“I just had a session yesterday, and I asked people to raise their hands: ‘How many of you actually deployed it?,’” Johar said of generative AI. “And it was only, I would say, somewhere between 7% to 10% raised their hands. And then I said, ‘How many of you are really excited to deploy it?’, and 30% to 40% hands raised.”

Keep reading on IT Brew.—EH

Louisiana’s largest not-for-profit health system began piloting a new generative AI tool in September to help providers more efficiently respond to patient questions.

About 100 clinicians across Ochsner Health’s 46 hospitals and 370 centers have started using technology from Microsoft that integrates electronic health record (EHR) data to draft and send “simple messages” to patients.

“[The AI] will reduce [the] time our clinicians are spending on computers so that they can spend more time doing what they do best—direct patient care,” Ochsner Chief Application Officer Amy Trainor said in a statement.

Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, which works together with the EHR system Epic, can generate responses to routine questions sent through the MyOchsner app that aren’t related to either clinical judgment or diagnoses, according to the health system.

Clinicians then review the AI-generated messages for accuracy before sending the response to patients. Ochsner emphasized that the AI tool is intended to support—not replace—communication between patients and providers.

“Our online portal, MyOchsner, allows our patients and clinicians to communicate in a very special way,” Trainor told Healthcare Brew in an email. “We want to continue that important relationship while using AI to foster it, making the patient happier with a timely answer, and making the provider happier with an easier way to get the message completed.”

Keep reading on Healthcare Brew.—KW

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

But can they make it so they don’t hurt when you step on them?: Everyone knows plastic is a big ol’ problem. And our dedicated rinsing-and-recycling routines, well-intentioned though they may be, ain’t gonna cut it; big companies are going to have to produce less plastic—or entirely revamp their product lines to stop using materials made from fossil fuels.

Enter Lego. Wired has a fascinating write-up about the company’s (spoiler alert: largely failed) efforts to make those rigid little bricks out of something other than ABS, or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

Lego is just one company, but it alone manufactures tons of tech quandaries just waiting to be solved and scaled. What’s an adequate alternative to plastic? How can existing plastics be sustainably recycled and reused? How do we, you know, get all the plastic out of the ocean?

Got an answer? Drop us a line. We’d love to hear about it!

On the books: Many just use Spotify to stream Taylor Swift’s entire catalog over and over again. (Guilty as charged over here.) But now the streamer is offering up a different kind of earworm: audiobooks.

The New York Times reported that Spotify plans to offer “15 hours of audiobooks each month as part of its streaming service for premium subscribers in Britain and Australia” before expanding to US subscribers come winter.

Fifteen hours a month is perhaps more time than we want to spend listening to…not Taylor Swift, but we’ll probably give it a shot once it comes out. We’ve got an ear to the ground for Taylor Lorenz’s Extremely Online and Zeke Faux’s Number Go Up.