I paid for several, to test features and see if there is value.
There is little value in paying, close to zero. The difference between the best models and the best free ones are miniscule. We are hitting a plateau now, with diminishing returns. Talking with AI is a nice UX feature, and is mostly paid, but Qwen has this for free.
Images and video generation is not useful. Coding is slightly useful in very specific cases, but mostly useless. It gives a false sense of fast progress. In the long term it harms productivity. So it works for simple proof of concepts and inspiration/exploring solutions. If you are a junior in a language or software development, avoid it. Otherwise the road to becoming a senior will be long and hard.
The most useful cases is “creativity”, exploring ideas, and inspiration. And getting started with something where you don’t know where to begin. If I want to know something about a topic, I find it as a useful and untrustworthy starting point, nothing can be trusted from AI, but it can introduce you to subjects so that you know what to look for. It is useful for exploring ideas and brainstorming.
So don’t pay, just use the free ones. There is low value in paying. If you have a PC with a mid/high end GPU you can install Jan.ai for free and use models locally also.
I currently use Mistral and Qwen mostly. I still have a subscription to Mistral, and am waiting for it to run out.
Is there anything as good as vscode-copilot for free models? I mean, integrating the process of querying models with actually generating and applying diffs to the files in project, etc.
The extension kilocode let’s u connect to any openai api comparable endpoint. I’ve got it hooked up to my instance of openwebui so I can use remote models via open routers or use locals models.
Copilot is an extension for VS Code that does integration of their supported AI models with code editor (including creation/removal/moving/renaming/editing files, providing git-like diffs and per-file keep/discard choices for what AI made in response to your most recent prompt, etc). They only support fixed set of models and don’t provide any way to integrate free / opensource models. So the question is mainly what’s the alternative to Copilot for free models.
I paid for several, to test features and see if there is value. There is little value in paying, close to zero. The difference between the best models and the best free ones are miniscule. We are hitting a plateau now, with diminishing returns. Talking with AI is a nice UX feature, and is mostly paid, but Qwen has this for free.
Images and video generation is not useful. Coding is slightly useful in very specific cases, but mostly useless. It gives a false sense of fast progress. In the long term it harms productivity. So it works for simple proof of concepts and inspiration/exploring solutions. If you are a junior in a language or software development, avoid it. Otherwise the road to becoming a senior will be long and hard.
The most useful cases is “creativity”, exploring ideas, and inspiration. And getting started with something where you don’t know where to begin. If I want to know something about a topic, I find it as a useful and untrustworthy starting point, nothing can be trusted from AI, but it can introduce you to subjects so that you know what to look for. It is useful for exploring ideas and brainstorming.
So don’t pay, just use the free ones. There is low value in paying. If you have a PC with a mid/high end GPU you can install Jan.ai for free and use models locally also.
I currently use Mistral and Qwen mostly. I still have a subscription to Mistral, and am waiting for it to run out.
Is there anything as good as vscode-copilot for free models? I mean, integrating the process of querying models with actually generating and applying diffs to the files in project, etc.
I understand vscode is free, and can connect to free AI backends. I haven’t tried yet.
The extension kilocode let’s u connect to any openai api comparable endpoint. I’ve got it hooked up to my instance of openwebui so I can use remote models via open routers or use locals models.
Copilot is an extension for VS Code that does integration of their supported AI models with code editor (including creation/removal/moving/renaming/editing files, providing git-like diffs and per-file keep/discard choices for what AI made in response to your most recent prompt, etc). They only support fixed set of models and don’t provide any way to integrate free / opensource models. So the question is mainly what’s the alternative to Copilot for free models.