Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#211

Post by motbus3 » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:32 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #97

wowoc wrote: post #62

Anthropic does a somewhat similar thing. If you visit their ToS (the one for Max/Pro plans) from a European IP address, they replace one section with this: Non-commercial use only. You agree not to use our Services for any commercial or business purposes and we (and our Providers) have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity. It's funny that…

Well, there's your rationale as to why AI cannot replace you. When sh!t hits the fan, Anthropic will immediately point to this clause. Who knows, maybe a court would see it as valid. Meanwhile, your customer (and thus, your management) is looking for someone to blame for excrement making contact with the impellers. And that someone's gonna be you.

the moment they can, each token will be 10,100,1000x more expensive

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#212

Post by wat10000 » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

zombot wrote: post #194

flawi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm paying for said software? No, I don't think I have.

The Home/Personal edition of Mathematica is for non-commercial use only although it's a paid subscription. The world around you is not bound by your ignorance.

Does Wolfram advertise that edition of Mathematica as being "for work" like MS does the individual Copilot plan?

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#213

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

lucianbr wrote: post #191

gamblor956 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...In Russia. That wouldn't work in the U.S. Changes to material terms in a contract generally informed consent (meaning, that the modifications are actually disclosed to the counterparty before they sign) or specific consent (such as a initializing the sections of the contract where the modifications occur). This is a basic part of the UCC, which all states have adopted in some form. There are a lot of people on the…

It's depressing to see how the system works. Sure, now there are different kind of terms in a contract, some are material terms and some are... immaterial? And conveniently, you can change some but not others in such a way that the banks and powerful corporations always come out on top. I never heard of a corporation being forced to point out explicitly which lines in their long terms and conditions document have cha…

Material terms are things like price, term, or anything that would change the nature of the overall agreement.

When corporations do it (i.e. change TOS) they need to send you notice of the new terms because it's no longer a change, it's a new contract that replaces the old one...if you agree to it by continuing to usetheir service after notice.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#214

Post by lucianbr » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 6:43 AM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #213

lucianbr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing to see how the system works. Sure, now there are different kind of terms in a contract, some are material terms and some are... immaterial? And conveniently, you can change some but not others in such a way that the banks and powerful corporations always come out on top. I never heard of a corporation being forced to point out explicitly which lines in their long terms and conditions document have cha…

Material terms are things like price, term, or anything that would change the nature of the overall agreement. When corporations do it (i.e. change TOS) they need to send you notice of the new terms because it's no longer a change, it's a new contract that replaces the old one...if you agree to it by continuing to usetheir service after notice.

The guy sent the bank a contract. It was the first contract between them, it wasn't a "new contract" (as opposed to the old one? no such thing), it wasn't a "change" to an existing contract.

Why did he need to highlight some terms? How do you mean "change the nature of the agreement", change from what? They didn't have an agreement before this.

> because it's no longer a change, it's a new contract that replaces the old one

What sophistry is this? Of course it's a change. Most of the contract is the same, it's not like Paypal changes it's business to selling shoes. They do the same things, and the terms are mostly the same, only they make some changes. There's nothing supporting your claim that it's a new contract.

> things like price, term, or anything that would change the nature of the overall agreement

That's everything in the contract. Which parts of the contract don't affect the nature of the contract? Why are they there? What the hell is "the overall nature"? If a fee for something changes from $1 to $2, as I understand the english language, "the overall nature" of the contract doesn't change. Just a fee. It's a detail. But this is exactly what you list as "material terms".

It's all BS.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#215

Post by rkagerer » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 11:57 AM UTC

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #189

rkagerer wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if you brought a paper contract to court that mutated itself depending which way you look at the paper, I wonder what a judge would think of that? Personally I would crumple it up and pitch it out the window. I don't know why they can't simply be clear about what clauses apply to which geographies. An IP address should not be assumed as a reliable indicator of the jurisdiction in which an end-user resides. (Eg.…

It's perfectly normal for contracts in different jurisdictions to use different wording and include different clauses. Even within the US, employment contracts with the same organisation may contain different wording depending on the state in which the employment is occurring.

My issue isn't with them having different verbiage for different jurisdictions. It's with the way they sneakily change the verbiage in a manner nobody would expect.

The correct way to do this is to clearly distinguish them e.g. two different contracts, one titled "US Terms of Service" and another "European Terms of Service". Both with static content. Preferably PDF's or some other fixed format which you can download to redline changes when they inevitably tweak it every couple years, and properly print in the event you need to embark on litigation.

Not some "Global Terms of Service that silently change depending on quasi-pseudorandom network stack effects"

How the hell are you supposed to have confidence you're even looking at the right document? Contracts are meant to be clear and unambiguous, this dark pattern works against consensus ad idem.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#216

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

lucianbr wrote: post #214

gamblor956 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Material terms are things like price, term, or anything that would change the nature of the overall agreement. When corporations do it (i.e. change TOS) they need to send you notice of the new terms because it's no longer a change, it's a new contract that replaces the old one...if you agree to it by continuing to usetheir service after notice.

The guy sent the bank a contract. It was the first contract between them, it wasn't a "new contract" (as opposed to the old one? no such thing), it wasn't a "change" to an existing contract. Why did he need to highlight some terms? How do you mean "change the nature of the agreement", change from what? They didn't have an agreement before this. > because it's no longer a change, it's a new contract that replaces the…

And this is why most programmers should stay away from law...

He changed the material terms of the contract so the other parties‘ obligations and rights were substantially different than what they had thought they were in the original version. In the U.S. his actions would have resulted in him being bound by the contract but the other party not being bound.

Doubling the price of a contract is a material term. Basically anything that would make someone change their mind about entering into the contract is material, but price and term are always material by law.

Stuff that isn't normally negotiated isn't material, like jurisdiction for disputes.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#217

Post by mjmas » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:27 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #164

conductr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A US user can use it for commercial use and be in compliance with the terms, the UK user cannot. But why? My guess is the liability exposure is what they’re trying to control. So you probably can if you’re ok with no liability. It’s still noncompliant to how they wrote it but I would guess it’s the motivation. Unless they really just want to force the UK to pay for all commercial uses, which I suppose is possible.

I think its because the law in the UK limits exclusions of liabilities in consumer contracts far more than in business contracts (in general consumer law has a LOT of protections that do not apply to business contracts). If you look at the clauses excluding liabilities they are very different. I think the same applies to many other countries so they will also have separate consumer contracts.

The law in Australia also has teeth, but visiting the link above just gets me (what seems to be) the US version of the terms without anything around commercial use.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#218

Post by p_ing » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

qubex wrote: post #55

throwa356262 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am working really hard to not start using Copilot. And belive me, if you use any Microsoft products or services they really make it hard to avoid accidentally using the damn thing. Including adding it to your office plan and then charging you 2x.

I’m a Mac user and the only way to get Office 365 is a monthly subscription. Since there’s no subscription that doesn’t include CoPilot and since they hiked the price with the excuse that they’d added this thing I didn’t want, I just cancelled my subscription. A customer lost: hardly an issue, but if enough people do it, maybe they’ll get a clue and stop ramming this unwelcome abomination down our throats.

You can buy a perpetual Mac Office 2024, if you want.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#219

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #173

giobox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha out of curiosity I loaded that same consumer terms URL on both a USA and a UK VPN exit node - sure enough, the UK terms inject that extra clause you quoted banning commercial usage that is not present for USA users. diff of the changes between US and UK: https://www.diffchecker.com/BtqVrR9p/ There's the usual expected legal boilerplate differences. However, the UK version injects the additional clause at line 134…

Wow, if you brought a paper contract to court that mutated itself depending which way you look at the paper, I wonder what a judge would think of that? Personally I would crumple it up and pitch it out the window. I don't know why they can't simply be clear about what clauses apply to which geographies. An IP address should not be assumed as a reliable indicator of the jurisdiction in which an end-user resides. (Eg.…

Having different contracts for different countries with different rules is a normal thing.

Re: Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only

#220

Post by joot82 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

lousken wrote: post #120

lateforwork wrote: post #115

Go to https://www.copilot.com/ and ask a question. You'll see from the answers that it is indeed for entertainment only. It is ridiculously behind ChatGPT, and I don't know how that can happen since Microsoft has access to the same models.

it not as bad as in gpt 4.1 days, but i am wondering if it is just the system prompt or what is going on

I imagine Microsoft like any other bean counter company heavily quantizing the GPT models or whatever they use to serve it at scale with minimal cost.