StarCoder

2023: Product Launch

In early May 2023, artificial intelligence startup Hugging Face and ServiceNow Research, the research arm of ServiceNow, released StarCoder, a free model for generating code. The service is available here.

It is noted that StarCoder is an alternative to systems such as DeepMind AlphaCode, Amazon CodeWhisperer and OpenAI Codex (at the heart of the GitHub Copilot AI tool). The StarCoder model is trained to work with more than 80 programming languages. When creating the solution, the texts and documentation from the GitHub repositories were used .

Hugging Face and ServiceNow Research release StarCoder

The StarCoder model can be integrated with the Microsoft Visual Studio Code Editor. The new tool, like the ChatGPT chatbot, is able to answer questions about programming, as well as solve problems in response to instructions received. StarCoder can act as a smart programming assistant, helping developers focus on more important areas.

StarCoder takes into account approximately 15 billion parameters. Hugging Face has provided its own computing cluster of 512 Nvidia V100 accelerators to train the AI model. It is emphasized that StarCoder can be used free of charge for any projects, including commercial applications (without the need to pay royalties). The model is released according to the OpenRAIL-M scheme, which allows the generated code to be used for its own purposes, but with some restrictions. In particular, it is not allowed to create and distribute malware.

At the same time, Hugging Face and ServiceNow admit that in its current form, the StarCoder model is imperfect and needs to be improved. In some cases, it can produce "inaccurate, offensive and misleading content."^[1]

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