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Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

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Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#111

Post by lotyrin »

jordanb wrote: post #86
le-mark wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experimented with some ai generated political spam on YouTube. The reality is a lot of people can’t tell the difference or don’t care. Given the demographic this site selects for, it’s easy to forget how many dumb people there are in the world.

I know people who get confused and consume AI content but when you point out that it's AI they're embarrassed they were fooled and upset. I've never heard the response "I don't care that it's AI." The tech bros will say that it's a "revealed preference" for AI, but it's really just tricking people into engaging.

I caught my mom watching a bunch of AI impersonations of musicians on Youtube singing slop that rarely rhymed or had any kind of message in the lyrics and with super formulaic arrangements. I asked her what she liked about them and it was like "they seem well made" and I showed her how easy Suno is to use and then showed her some of the bad missed rhymes and transcribed the lyrics to where she could see there wasn't any there there to any part of it (and how easy it is to get LLMs to generate better). It seemed to have been an antidote.

This is stuff that used to take effort and was worth consuming just for that, and lots of people don't have their filter adjusted (much as the early advent of consumer-facing email spam) to account for how low effort and plentiful these forms of content are.

I can only hope that people raise their filters to a point where scrutinizing everything becomes common place and a message existing doesn't lend it any assumed legitimacy. Maybe AI will be the poison for propaganda (but I'm not holding my breath).

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#112

Post by ewoodrich »

i80and wrote: post #44
hodgehog11 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are severely overhyped, have many problems, and I don't want them in my face anymore than the average person. But we're not in 2023 anymore. These kinds of comments just come off ignorant.

I dunno, I'm not fully anti-LLM, but almost every interaction I have with an LLM-augmented system still at some point involves it confidently asserting plainly false things, and I don't think the parent is that far off base.

Agreed, some days I code for 4-6 hours with agentic tools but 2025 or not I still can't stomach using any of the big three LLMs for all but the most superficial research questions (and I currently pay/get access to all three paid chatbots).

Even if they were right 9/10 (which is far from certain depending on the topic) and save me a minute or two compared to Google + skim/read-ing a couple websites, it's completely overshadowed by the 1/10 time they calmly and confidently lie about whether tool X supports feature Y and send me on a wild goose chase looking through docs for something that simply does not exist.

In my personal experience the most consistently unreliable questions are those that would be most directly useful for my work, and for my interests/hobbies I'd rather read a quality source myself. Because, well, I enjoy reading! So the value proposition for "LLM as Google/forum/Wikipedia replacement" is very, very weak for me.

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#114

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #106
surgical_fire wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Diablo Immortal generated a ton of money, I hope you are wrong. I believe users are stupid enough to stick to Microsoft "agentic OS" anyway.

My biggest issue with “users choosing to stick with it” is the inordinate number of users in corporate environments who simply won’t be given a choice. They’ll be given some garbage W11 laptop by IT, which will be irrevocably infested with whatever garbage MS wants, and there will be _nothing_ they can do about it. I can see it happening in real time with my partners work computer.

Garbage software loaded on a corporate laptop is nothing new. That it comes directly from Microsoft instead of a third party security company does not meaningfully move the needle. I have long assumed that a work machine has literal keyloggers.

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#115

Post by aleph_minus_one »

But why integrate AI so deeply into Windows instead of

1. keeping Windows as small and lean as possible, and let it do the things an operating system is for,

2. offering some AI applications that can be installed optionally by the users who want them, i.e. turn their AI applications into external software that can be installed/used or not, like Microsoft Office.

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#116

Post by slowmovintarget »

Weryj wrote: post #11

AI failed at Microsoft because they already lost the consumer trust. I doubt they would have this issue with AI integration if people didn’t feel that installing windows is a hostile corporate takeover of your computer.

> AI failed at Microsoft...

Let's be fair. Microsoft has not succeeded at mainstream consumer AI products... yet.

To say AI failed at Micrsoft when CoPilot (the real one, for developers) was, last I heard, the most subscribed generative AI tool for software developers is not a failure. It's wild that most developers in a corporate environment pay Microsoft to use Chat GPT, Gemini, and Claude. Their other gen-AI components in Office, like Powerpoint and Word, are pretty darn good. But again, unless you're a corporate user in a work setting, you probably don't care.

This push to lease you your own computer is what hasn't worked very well so far. I dearly hope it pushes more people to Linux (though more likely they'll flee to Mac, which is a more palatable version of the clumsy crap MS is trying to do).

So consumer AI... perhaps that has failed. But the money isn't in you and me paying for a Windows license. The money's in big corporations paying for ten thousand seats at a time for their suites.

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#117

Post by hliyan »

hifix wrote: post #5

> The fact that people are unimpressed that we can have a fluent conversation with a super smart AI that can generate any image/video is mindblowing to me. It's not that people are unimpressed with AI - they're just tired of constantly being bombarded with it, and it sneaking its way into where it's not wanted. "Generate any image you want!" "Analyse this thing with AI!" gets pretty tiring. If I want AI I'll actively…

This is where a lot of people are. In my case, every time I open a PDF in Google Drive, it forces an AI summary of the doc with no way for me to switch it off. I try to close it mid-generation, but I suspect not fast enough to keep it from getting counted in the usage stats, which is probably what some product manager is trying to maximize and demonstrate ("X number of PDF summarizations this quarter").

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#118

Post by w_for_wumbo »

We need to see actual improvements to our day to day lives if we want to see support for AI. At the moment, people are seeing improvements in technology, but they're feeling the decline of the welfare of those around them, they're feeling food insecurity, they're feeling uncertain about job security.

Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

#119

Post by rustystump »

hifix wrote: post #5

> The fact that people are unimpressed that we can have a fluent conversation with a super smart AI that can generate any image/video is mindblowing to me. It's not that people are unimpressed with AI - they're just tired of constantly being bombarded with it, and it sneaking its way into where it's not wanted. "Generate any image you want!" "Analyse this thing with AI!" gets pretty tiring. If I want AI I'll actively…

When have i ever wanted my os to “generate any image i want!”

This is like a chef being confused why people dont like the shoes he made them. Why did he make hungry people shoes? Certainly not to eat?

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