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Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

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Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#611

Post by wkat4242 »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #127

Microsoft has gone full-blown evil corporation again. No customer validation on any of the AI cruft. No full OPT OUT. Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere. I've been a Windows user from day one and I now see a future without it. Satya had been a bright spot in Microsoft, but this blind lust for AI, especially in bed with Altman who is pure con artist, is unforgivable. Some of the investment…

I think the agentic idea is worth exploring. It could be useful.

However I would want it running fully locally (on my servers, absolutely not on Azure or any other cloud) and to have full control of where everything is stored and how it works. And have full control whether I use it or not. Absolutely no popups and marketing nudges to use it. That stuff tends to drive me away, it deeply annoys me and I only start hating the product.

But this will not happen with windows. Microsoft is purely a cloud company now and windows is just a sales vehicle for it.

I think that's the core problem more so than just the latest thing they're trying to push. But I'm not on this hype train. I don't need to have it today or have FOMO. Rven at work there's this push to use AI "or else we will become irrelevant soon". Which is partly driven by Microsoft as they are very close to our top dogs. Their "adoption" teams are constantly hounding us with their bullshit and I hate them so much. Also the colleagues who are evangelising AI (constantly shilling on Yammer and LinkedIn) are just working to make themselves irrelevant in the long term because AI is cheaper than colleagues.

I'll try it when it comes to Linux in a workable form and fully under my control. Just like I didn't use chatbots until they had workable performance on my own ollama server. And even then I don't use it that much. It's still early days. I don't get this pressure "keep up our fall out". I've been doing computing for 40 years and all the big things have taken at least a decade to actually "change the game". Like the dotcom crash. Eventually we fulfilled it's promises but it required other things to make it happen. Like the smartphone and the app.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#612

Post by wkat4242 »

ptx wrote: post #517
close04 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when it looked like they were less "evil". There was a period punctuated by less anticompetitive behavior, embracing open source, no significant user-hostile moves, etc. and naively it did look like they are focused on the product not on abusing competitors or users. Can't say if this was a step in a carefully crafted plan, or just made business sense to be like this at the time. But Microsoft did lo…

That sounds consistent with their classic embrace-extend-extinguish process [1]. Embracing with no significant user-hostile moves is step 1, and then abusing competitors and users comes as step 3 of the process. They need to briefly look less evil in step 1 to maneuver into position for step 3. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Yes because they were embracing new markets. They've always followed this process but they made a big paradigm change at that point. This is why they suddenly "loved Linux". Because it was no longer a threat but a tool to them, as they were shifting from being an OS vendor to hyperscale cloud vendor.

The same way with other big American tech. Netflix operated for a decade at a loss and now that they saturated the market they are constantly asking more money for less content.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#613

Post by wkat4242 »

torginus wrote: post #606
int_19h wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They laid off a lot of people with Win32 experience in the past couple of years. If that was really a problem they could just hire some of them back (or, I dunno, keep them in the first place).

It's weird that Linux people are still seething to this day that the reason for Linux's lack of success on the desktop comes from the unfair pushing of Windows, when it's clear that Microsoft has been barely putting any effort into Windows, and gutting development save for AI stuff. I'm sure Microsoft would be perfectly fine ditching Windows as long as they could keep pushing Teams, Azure AD and Office 365 to compani…

I'm a Linux user but I don't understand the drive of Linux users for it to be a mainstream OS. If it would be mainstream it would be more commercial, the users having less agency, having no choice in desktop environment and tied to commercial services. Because once it's big, big companies will want to make big bucks off the people using it. And most consumers actually like big tech companies taking them by the hand and choosing for them.

So in other words, Linux on the desktop will be a Linux I will hate. The closest thing to Linux for the mainstream we have is ChromeOS and I'm sure we all hate it. I sure do because I want nothing to do with Google services.

In other words, be careful what you ask for.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#614

Post by wkat4242 »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #229
ChicagoDave wrote: post #127

Microsoft has gone full-blown evil corporation again. No customer validation on any of the AI cruft. No full OPT OUT. Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere. I've been a Windows user from day one and I now see a future without it. Satya had been a bright spot in Microsoft, but this blind lust for AI, especially in bed with Altman who is pure con artist, is unforgivable. Some of the investment…

> OpenAI enabled its users to have a sext conversation. Considering that this is only with verified adults, how is this "evil"? I find it more evil to treat full grown adult users as kids and heavily censor their use of LLMs. (Not to detract from the rest of your post, with which I agree).

That's true. Most of my local models are uncensored. I don't want that prude culture pushed on me. And it also stops AI from working correctly because a lot of stuff I talk about with my friends is sexual and it's so annoying for an AI model to keep closing up.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#615

Post by wkat4242 »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #406
ChicagoDave wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is not about morality. It’s about ROI focus and that OpenAI can’t and won’t ever return anything remotely close to what’s been invested. Adult content is not getting them closer to profitability. And if anyone believes the AGI hyperbole, oh boy I have a bridge and a mountain to sell. LLM tech will never lead to AGI. You need a tech that mimics synapses. It doesn’t exist.

>LLM tech will never lead to AGI. You need a tech that mimics synapses. It doesn’t exist. Why would you think synapses (or their dynamics) are required for AGI rather than being incidental owing to the constraints of biology? (This discussion never goes anywhere productive but I can't help myself from asking)

It doesn't have to be synapses but it should follow a similar structure. If we want it to think like us it should be like us.

LLM are really good at pretending to be intelligent but I don't think they'll ever overcome the "pretend" part.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#616

Post by wkat4242 »

The_President wrote: post #501
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OpenAI enabled its users to have a sext conversation. Considering that this is only with verified adults, how is this "evil"? I find it more evil to treat full grown adult users as kids and heavily censor their use of LLMs. (Not to detract from the rest of your post, with which I agree).

Ok so for that matter let's pose this hypothetical... How would you feel if Disney or Nintendo produced adult content for verified adults?

Pretty good actually. I use adult games in steam too and I sure use it on streaming. And most people do, they just don't talk about it.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#617

Post by wkat4242 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #232
ako wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows NT -> Experience what a good microsoft OS was. Especially around NT 3.1, NT 3.5 their goal seemed mostly to have a good competing OS.

Sure, if you ignore all the anticompetitive bullshit they pulled to blackmail high street stores into removing BeOS, DrDOS, Linux and others from their shelves. And the stunts they pulled to kill other IMs. Or how they crippled the web for a decade due to killing competing browsers, building Windows lock-ins into IE (eg ActiveX controls), fragmenting Java, and then leaving IE to die themselves. Or how they lied about…

They are very good at talking to businesses but even more important was their installed base. As they used to say "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

They won because they were first mover, not because they were the best because they weren't and they aren't. This is why they are so hell bent on copilot everywhere. They want to build an installed base again so they can milk it. But they're hardly the best. In fact what they are selling as copilot isn't even anything they made. It's just Chatgpt. Another interesting parallel with edge by the way which is of course just chrome.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#618

Post by wkat4242 »

yabones wrote: post #512
sensanaty wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidenote, why is it always booking a plane ticket that they hype up? It's like the only 2 things any of the marketing can think of is booking plane tickets and replying to emails

It's funny, because it's also one of the most "gotcha-filled" things you can do. Click the wrong box, and they'll stick you in a seat with no leg room or make you pay extra for a carry-on bag. I have very little confidence that an AI would be able to make the "correct" choice on an airline ticket consistently without making a rather impactful mistake.

It will work for a while and then the airlines will game their systems against AI agents just like they currently do against consumers.

It's just a temporary solution. A real solution would be for laws to force them to not do this. But airlines are often very intertwined with the state and a prestige thing for a country.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#619

Post by wkat4242 »

sdoering wrote: post #510
The_President wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so for that matter let's pose this hypothetical... How would you feel if Disney or Nintendo produced adult content for verified adults?

Why should anyone feel anything offensive about that? Or why would anyone get offended over this? I really do not understand what the issue would be.

The whole "porn is a poison to society" narrative is very strong with conservatives now. A lot of them (here in Holland even) want it banned like it's Afghanistan and for everyone to have a family with lots of kids that has their dinner at 6pm after prayer.

I also don't subscribe to that. I'm polyamorous and sex-positive. And very LGBTIQ friendly. But I've seen that attitude a lot even in Europe :( especially from the emerging extreme right parties.

I don't really understand it either. Why is it any of their business what I do? I don't tell them they can't have a big traditional family. Why are they so preoccupied with me.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#620

Post by auggierose »

megous wrote: post #534
auggierose wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solitaire is now a subscription service That is a joke, right? Right??

Well, you can have a subscription for switching a relay in your car, so that current flows from the battery to some wire, so that your seat heats up. It's a sign of the times...

That should be criminal.
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