It’s not that people are unimpressed with ai, it’s that they are unimpressed with what it can even on windows and forcing us to interact with it. Like I can’t even change basic settings with it. If it were good, you don’t need to tell me to used it!
Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
141–150 of 392 posts
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#142But 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.
Windows is not a general purpose operating system. It's a platform for monetizing businesses via licensing and cloud services, and a platform for monetizing private users by way of advertising and data mining. If they were ever to produce a Windows PowerUser edition, with absolutely no bloat, it would have to be priced like a CAD suite.
Fine, price it like a CAD suite, then.
My problem with Microsoft is that they won't sell an un-enshittified version of Windows for any price (LTSC notwithstanding; it's not licensable for general use.) Owning our computing experience is that important to them.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#143When Microsoft updated office.com to immediately bring up a copilot prompt, and made it harder for me to find the menu items, I was pretty annoyed.
Foisting AI on people in the way they have means we lose a bit more control, for a feature we don't want. There is a certain level of AI burnout in the market - not every product needs AI. In fact, if a vendor says they have "AI" in their product, I immediately ignore that aspect and ask even more questions about their actual capabilities. Often they are hiding things behind an AI smokescreen.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 compo…
> It's wild that most developers in a corporate environment pay Microsoft to use Chat GPT, Gemini, and Claude It definitely didn't help back when my manager asked me to recommend a subscription to buy everyone on our team that Anthropic didn't offer any plan with a predictable monthly cost for Claude Code with SSO/externally managed billing (I think that changed fairly recently). Github Copilot for Business with an e…
The thing that our management likes about co-pilot is that the data stays with us. We can't say that about ChatGPT.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The issue is that one could reasonably argue that about 95% of pop music is was already formulaic slop. Not just pejoratively, but much of it was even made by the same people. Everybody from Britney Spears to Taylor Swift and more modern acts are all being driven by one guy - 'Max Martin'. [1] Once you see the songs he's credited with, you instantly start to realize it's painfully formulaic, but most people are happy…
Max Martin is considered incredibly good at what he does.
https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=m-A6M8xrad5MrQqZ&t=151
Adam Conover discussed ad bumpers from the 1990s and 2000s. These were legal requirements for children's programming from the FCC. They're a compliance item, yet they were incredibly well made and creative in in many cases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vI0UcUxzrQ
Because people at the top of their game will do great creative work even when doing commercial art and in many cases, will do way more than is perhaps commercially necessary.
So much of this AI push reminds me of the scene in 1984 where they had pornography generating machines creating completely uninspired formulaic brainrot stories by machine to occupy the proles.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#146> 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…
Sex is great, but if you constabtly try to force it on me, sneak it into deals we make, or while i sleep etc. it will leave me quite hostile towards the topic, and that's where we are at. Consent is important in all things, no less here.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#147> 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…
Instead of "pushing back" I wish he'd actually listen to and address his critics' points. He is deliberately and disingenuously missing the point. It's not that the features aren't good (maybe they are, maybe they aren't). It's about how coercive Microsoft and Windows are with its users, and this exec is failing to address that one. Just once, I'd like to hear a question get through to these assholes asking them why…
They only understand one thing: shareholder value. This dude's panicking because he knows how bad the next quarterly report looks when this strategy resulted in a hemorrhaging userbase. This is an expression of a stage of grief.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#148> 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 the fundamental misunderstanding that the AI techies have. Normal people don’t want a “conversation“ with a computer. Conversations happen between people. Computers, at best, receive orders and carry them out. They are tools, not companions, and they should do nothing unless explicitly told to do it.
I wouldnt mind if the conversations actually were smart, not sycophantic, or were otherwise useful. I find more often than not it creates more work for me than it saves me, and even if i were to break even on time invested i lose massively on comprehension/understanding.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The issue is that one could reasonably argue that about 95% of pop music is was already formulaic slop. Not just pejoratively, but much of it was even made by the same people. Everybody from Britney Spears to Taylor Swift and more modern acts are all being driven by one guy - 'Max Martin'. [1] Once you see the songs he's credited with, you instantly start to realize it's painfully formulaic, but most people are happy…
I do argue that, actually. I mostly avoid manufactured corpo-pop.
Re: Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash
#150This Microsoft response reminds me of the 2018 Blizzcon event, where the Diablo Immortal developer challenged the audience with "Do you guys not have phones?" when the audience asked if the game was coming to PC. Then - like now - it seemed that they couldn't understand that what they made was not what their customers wanted.
My thought exactly. From hindsight, Diablo immortal is not a bad game, but that moment was really…not great. I guess the guy knew that phone games were getting momentum but unfortunately that specific group of users in Blizzcon didn’t want a phone game.
I think if they'd teased a phone game it would have been well received. From memory, the problem was they teased something much larger/exiting (new diablo, not a chinese arpg reskin) so when the reveal hit everyone was massively let down.
I guess this is kind of similar though. what is promised isnt and likely wont be delivered.