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The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

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341–350 of 591 posts

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get pissed off as a software engineer lol I think this part depends on the person. I've personally been programming since I was a kid making games for my TI-83+, and in all that time and fatigue have been the limiting factors in how much of what I wanted to build that I actually could build. So something able to write code rigorously enough to replace SWEs would be an absolute dream! I love programming with all…

That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majorit…

Question I have is if no one has any job because it’s been replaced by AI, what happens to the economy?

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#342
post #340
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and the fact that it will brick my $600 HP Reverb G2 headset are two reasons that I will never ever “upgrade” to Win11.

Microsoft not the only one.Mac OS upgrades effectively brick their own hardware. I’ve got a beautiful 27 inch iMac with a retina screen 5k … unusable now on last 2 OS updates.

Unusable? I still use my 27” 2011 iMac. Other than performing like a 14-year-old computer, it still does everything it ever could.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of an email I have ever received that needed to be summarized? Who is writing these super long emails?

> Who is writing these super long emails? Other LLMs.

Maybe in the future send an email with just a few simple words and phrases that then gets expanded by LLMs on the receiver end. A weird future awaits.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get pissed off as a software engineer lol I think this part depends on the person. I've personally been programming since I was a kid making games for my TI-83+, and in all that time and fatigue have been the limiting factors in how much of what I wanted to build that I actually could build. So something able to write code rigorously enough to replace SWEs would be an absolute dream! I love programming with all…

That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majorit…

> Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work

Our societies were built before there was a technology that could replace its smartest people with machines that never tire?

I don't get why people keep trying to imagine current society + super-intelligent AI: by definition it won't be our current society if we can actually get there would it?

I mean if we have AI that can even replace the researchers (I wouldn't dream so boldly tbh), imagine how much faster the pace of scientific discovery becomes. Imagine how much more efficient we can make power generation and transmission, discover new treatments for disease, democratize learning at costs never before possible...

I don't love to spend too much time daydreaming what we could do down that because SWEs already feels like a bit of a pipedream, so all novel research being automated away is just completely in fantasy land... but realistically we're already on a pretty terrible trajectory otherwise.

Our next billion people are about to be born into some of the worst off parts of the planet. AI becoming good enough to replace researchers would be an infinitely more positive trajectory than some of the others we could end up on on otherwise.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#345
post #342
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft not the only one.Mac OS upgrades effectively brick their own hardware. I’ve got a beautiful 27 inch iMac with a retina screen 5k … unusable now on last 2 OS updates.

Unusable? I still use my 27” 2011 iMac. Other than performing like a 14-year-old computer, it still does everything it ever could.

Except develop apps for the Apple platform. Or use any of the new features of the Apple macOS. Or soon receive any security updates.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I've been an Xbox player since 2002. Huge Halo fan. Thousands of hours on 3 different generations of Xbox. I still have my Halo 3 special edition helmet. I keep up with gaming news and listen to multiple gaming podcasts every week. But even I can't reliably name the last two generations of Xbox without a pause. I always have to stop for a second and think it thru because the naming scheme is so abysmal.

It gets worse. Did you see this ad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYBSNQLsBKk

But that's my lived experience. I play Xbox games with friends who are playing on an Xbox console, but I'm playing on my Windows-based Legion Go or my Windows PC on a desk at home or even cloud rendered through a web browser on a Linux box.

Xbox isn't just a single physical hardware device. Its a platform for playing games.

I do agree though, the naming patterns for their consoles has been absolutely atrocious. I consider myself somewhat of a gamer but if you just gave me the list of consoles there's absolutely a non-zero chance I'd fail at picking the rankings of performance and age.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get pissed off as a software engineer lol I think this part depends on the person. I've personally been programming since I was a kid making games for my TI-83+, and in all that time and fatigue have been the limiting factors in how much of what I wanted to build that I actually could build. So something able to write code rigorously enough to replace SWEs would be an absolute dream! I love programming with all…

I would guess that the pushback is more about the possible economic imbalance that will happen and less about being replaced on the actual effort of coding.

Maybe because I'm not originally from this country my view is different, but I think the fact the majority of the world's increase in population is about to happen in extremely poor places that will be subject to the worst of climate change means that the AI will have to be immensely powerful to actually increase worse imbalances than we're already headed for.

So powerful that it'd also raise the floor on quality of life for the 8 billion people on earth almost with ease, even if its owners stayed deeply profit/power motivated.

After all, it's not like the tech bros will get to make money by hoarding the AI and it's fruits after all. They need to apply to downstream tasks to actually cash in on its value. They could hoard the AI itself, but if OpenAI was suddenly able to break into every industry with a tireless AI army of top engineers and researchers they'd still be be producing real advancements for the world.

(and to be clear that's closer the worst timelines where AI advances so greatly. I think the more realistically we'd seem competition lead to something much closer to widespread advancements rather than some singular superpower emerging)

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majorit…

> Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work Our societies were built before there was a technology that could replace its smartest people with machines that never tire? I don't get why people keep trying to imagine current society + super-intelligent AI: by definition it won't be our current society if we can actually get there…

Social media could have been utopian, too, yet those apps are algorithmic manipulation hellscapes that threaten to bring down even the most robust democracies. The same people who make it so are poised to be the ones in control of these AIs. I don't think they want the kind of utopia you imagine.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#350

I understand people who love Apple (or the OSS world) unconditionally and I understand people who hate either, but I find it hard to feel any kind of strong emotion towards Microsoft. Feels like there isn’t a single product person left in the company, no vision, no direction, no soul, no plan, nothing.

I think when a company loses their founder, vision and leadership just aren't the same.

apple is also getting watered down. I don't think they've really come out with anything truly novel after sj passed away. In comparison to the ipod or iphone or ipad, the apple watch, vision, apple pay don't seem groundbreaking.

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