I really worry that the financial incentives for this are all wrong. MSFT has a massive incentive to obstinately push AI interference into every element of their products. They must show traction to justify the continued exuberance around AI in the stock market. But a tool like this just has so much scope to make the user experience worse. I know what I want to do on my computer, do I need some AI clippy to ask if I need help.
Windows has been on a strong downward trajectory for a while now - and that's been a conscious decision. In the last week I can remember my computer - unprompted - telling me the pollen count, a football score, 10 teas to sip for international tea day. That the FTSE Auto Index is down 3.24% (just go that now). None of that information is useful to me, I feel a strong sense of hatred towards windows now and I will be dumping this computer as soon as possible.
But that's me, the user, I'm not who Satya Nadella cares about, Satya cares about saying "300% annual growth rate of AI usage" so that their numbers go up and to the right and I think it's going to drive me away from MSFT products completely.
I am not a Microsoft-hater per sé, but the amount of times I had to repeatedly tell them No on a question they had asked me before is staggering.
E.g. I know I don't want to use Edge, yet it feels like one of those nightmares where you fight a thing that won't die. It keeps coming back and this is just one of those things.
Since I now played Fallout 4 without crashes on my Ubuntu system, I can't help but wonder if my future will be completely Windows-free at some point.
Yes/No became Yes / Please ask me later, and thank you very much (in a semi-hidden button in a totally unexpected position that doesn’t even look clickable)
And a few months later, it’ll toggle to “yes” automatically, due to a “bug”.
For what it's worth; since the Steam Deck came out the vast majority of my gaming library has become playable on my Linux desktop. The Windows partition was removed shortly after I got a Deck and realised Valve have done such an incredible job with Proton to make games playable on Linux. With my library of games, at least, I've not had any major issues that linger in the memory.
They know too.
The fact that they "ask"[0] you what you want (sometimes) and won't accept your answer is disrespectful, to say the least.
They know what you want and they are constantly and actively working against you, to manipulate or con you into changing your answer.
And that's when they don't just force something upon you outright.
Of course, they never intended to accept your choice.
The software is acting on behalf of the vendor, not the user.
Other software that does this is often called malware.
[0] Calling what Microsoft does "asking" is being extremely generous...
Like you, I also wonder the same. Main reason for me to use Windows was the (almost) it just works. But it is starting to become annoying enough that the tinkering on Linux is the lesser problem of the two.
Unity/Unreal engine is still subpar on Linux, Adobe suite doesn't exist, and IDE's... well, I pay for Jetbrains and it's great. But for other creatives, I don't see the jump happening anytime soon.
But sure, assuming minimal Wine wonkiness (nor pray not, some interference on WINE deveoplment by MSFT), I'm sure many gamers can transition to Linux and keep their library intact.
And for some folks like myself that actually like Windows, and were even into the WinRT (the COM evolution not marketing term) bandwagon, the kind of decisions that leaves me shaking my head how management keeps torpedoing engineering.
The EU cares about user consent. So just like with Teams and Edge defaults, we're likely to see similar pushbacks on EU versions of windows.
It's how I still don't have copilot on my Windows install despite the update bringing it to windows came to the US months ago. Or how certain employee tracking features in Azure/Office 365 are not available in EU.
Where "not now" could be a euphemism for "I don't want to, but there always a hope that they will change their minds later and won't force me", or perhaps it means "I want to wait until everyone else has caved, and my laptop no longer functional".
I only continue to use Windows for work because it is mandated. All new work laptops come with at least one day of entertainment called "setting up". Where the myriad options are explored for the possibility of duplicity, breaking data collection and plain old contrarianism.
Not just Microsoft, but all of Silicon Valley has a huge problem with end-user consent. If "The Software Industry" was a nightclub, it would be full of creepy guys hitting on women with "Do you want to dance? [Yes | Ask Me Again Later]"
> But that's me, the user, I'm not who Satya Nadella cares about, Satya cares about saying "300% annual growth rate of AI usage" so that their numbers go up and to the right and I think it's going to drive me away from MSFT products completely.
You might be surprised. Satya reads Hacker News and there is an internal Microsoft initiative to promote Microsoft tech here[0]:
> In fact this morning I was reading a news article in Hacker News, which is a community where we have been working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have made a lot of progress. In some sense that at least basically said that we’re neck to neck with Amazon when it comes to even elite developers as represented in that community.
Well LLMs have already stolen everything you ever wrote or posted online.
We told y'all to advocate for a very strict regulation of these things.
But no.
Instead: It's amazing. It's world changing.
Yes. It's going to change the world. For much worse. If you thought Citizens United damaged democracy just wait. Elections will be won by those with the most compute aka the most money everywhere.
People will die of this bullshit. I can't foretell how but they will. I mean, I haven't foreseen AI generated mushroom books but I am absolute certain this technology is deadly. Just wait.
Everything AI generated should come with an unskippable, extremely obvious huge warning of being AI generated and free of facts. If the AI companies won't add these then we should force them by regulation. But no. Hype instead.
How can anything you put online be "stolen" anyways? Its a 30 year old truth that you shouldn't put anything online you dont want anyone else to use... Long before LLMs were a reality. Why the fuzz now?
How much abuse can users take. Microsoft knows it's unlimited. Users have no alternatives. In the places where it is used, Windows still has no significant competition.
My two cents: no, the refusing option will be deep in the UI and surely you will need to use a combination of CTRL, ALTs, etc to make it visible before you check it out.
Many times it is more difficult to (securely, optimally, etc) configure a Microsoft Windows desktop than a Microsoft Server with Active Directory, and MS Exchange.
I think they dropped the bomb now so they could test the waters. If there's enough pushback, they'll slow down, make it opt-in, etc., but the goal is still even more spying.
Data mining the users of the most popular desktop operating system is a too huge profit opportunity to miss for ethical reasons.
When you think Microsoft can’t be any more hostile to its users they always surprise you with another trick up their sleeve.
There are not many companies which I’ve grown to immensely dislike over the years like Microsoft. I started my career as a .NET developer and huge fan of their products, buying into all their crap from all the way from Silverlight to Windows Phone, WPF and even owned a Surface Pro 3 tablet/laptop but today there is really rarely a company that makes me reck as much as Microsoft with their product announcements. My opinion of this company couldn’t be any lower and I hugely judge any developer working in Windows. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself that unless they are a game developer there is objectively speaking absolutely no reason for a developer to work on a Surface device or Windows.
Same here. Once worked with a guy who was a huge Microsoft fan, calling Macs and Linux-based workstations “nothing but toys”. Naturally I couldn’t help but laugh when he couldn’t work for 20 minutes due to a forced windows update and then a blue screen after booting up again.
The Candy crush and other crappy apps/games in combination to being a full fledged spyware OS with adware on top is already enough to make me run away screaming.
Macs are too damm expensive, don't really offer dollar per CPU/GPU/GB, and I am tired that there is always something that doesn't work with Pinguin OSes since 1995, even though I also admin UNIX boxes as part of the many hats I wear.
Android and Chrome OS aren't really a replacement for desktop OSes, and Google is even worse in spying users anyway.
Meanwhile I have a hard time connecting bluetooth devices in 2024 and fight with clunky settings windows just to find a relevant piece of information. I should calculate the raw seconds of lifetime I lose in a day waiting for the search to finish its webrequests before showing me local results of my search term as well.
Now imagine it happening for literally every interaction. Opened a context menu? Oh give me a second to check the LLM server for useful actions I can offer you. Want to close a window? One sec just wanna analyze the content first to see if you reealy want to close it.
I am so happy that most gaming is now possible on Linux and I dont have to use Windows at all.
I left Windows for Linux around when Win 10 came out. What prompted was the whole shenanigans to remove features I didn’t want and frustration with the settings (I like to change stuff every once in a while). I throw myself in the world of Arch, i3wm, and ricing. I’m using macOS now, but it’s quite nice to know there’s an haven out there once the abuse is too much.
That line feels more and more unrealistic to me as we're approaching a world where AI is shoved everywhere.
We'll probably never get such an emphatic apology, instead:
- there will be no response (same way mirroring a Disney movie in the Vision Pro is just a dark rectangle)
- it will tell us to just see with the administrator (the closest we have to "go fuck yourself", as we'll be the administrator)
- it will throw us a link to a help page with platitudes about how we're mostly free to do whatever we want, and ask us if the page was helpful to solve our problem.
- we'll be asked to repeat the request indefinitely with no response on the result.
Realistically for using Windows there will be three scenarios:
1) You like all of this "AI" "stuff" and you use the newest version of the Windows Operating System.
2) You just want an Operating System that works so you continue to use Windows 10.
3) You use Windows within a corporate environment where the Security and IT teams neuter it with Domain settings to disable most of these "AI" "features".
(4) Like many extremely poor Windows design choices over the years, Microsoft quietly backs it out and never talks about it again. Remember Windows RT? Windows 8?
Cloud 1: Cloud does all the compute, logic, storage, and transfer.
Cloud 2 = Cloud 1, but delegate more compute/logic to edge/local computers to reduce cost. [1]
Cloud 3 = Cloud 2, but edge/local computer has hardware specifically made to do the compute, store intermediate data, and send the results to someone else who might give you something in return for free, and possibly make you pay for it later.
Marketing can call it Cloud <3 (heart). Some might say </3 (broken heart). [2]
> [~10 years ago] Smartphones began incorporating AI accelerators starting with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 in 2015. [3]
> An AI accelerator, deep learning processor, or neural processing unit (NPU) is a class of specialized hardware accelerator or computer system designed to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, including artificial neural networks and machine vision. [3]
Readit News
I really worry that the financial incentives for this are all wrong. MSFT has a massive incentive to obstinately push AI interference into every element of their products. They must show traction to justify the continued exuberance around AI in the stock market. But a tool like this just has so much scope to make the user experience worse. I know what I want to do on my computer, do I need some AI clippy to ask if I need help.
Windows has been on a strong downward trajectory for a while now - and that's been a conscious decision. In the last week I can remember my computer - unprompted - telling me the pollen count, a football score, 10 teas to sip for international tea day. That the FTSE Auto Index is down 3.24% (just go that now). None of that information is useful to me, I feel a strong sense of hatred towards windows now and I will be dumping this computer as soon as possible.
But that's me, the user, I'm not who Satya Nadella cares about, Satya cares about saying "300% annual growth rate of AI usage" so that their numbers go up and to the right and I think it's going to drive me away from MSFT products completely.
E.g. I know I don't want to use Edge, yet it feels like one of those nightmares where you fight a thing that won't die. It keeps coming back and this is just one of those things.
Since I now played Fallout 4 without crashes on my Ubuntu system, I can't help but wonder if my future will be completely Windows-free at some point.
And you can't even tell it "No", it's typically "Maybe later" or "Not now". When will "modern UX experts" understand that "No means No".
And a few months later, it’ll toggle to “yes” automatically, due to a “bug”.
Except if it's a pattern that doesn't match what's perceived to be in the incredibly short term interests of Microsoft's shareholders.
> E.g. I know I don't want to use Edge
They know too. The fact that they "ask"[0] you what you want (sometimes) and won't accept your answer is disrespectful, to say the least. They know what you want and they are constantly and actively working against you, to manipulate or con you into changing your answer. And that's when they don't just force something upon you outright.
Of course, they never intended to accept your choice. The software is acting on behalf of the vendor, not the user. Other software that does this is often called malware.
[0] Calling what Microsoft does "asking" is being extremely generous...
But sure, assuming minimal Wine wonkiness (nor pray not, some interference on WINE deveoplment by MSFT), I'm sure many gamers can transition to Linux and keep their library intact.
Deleted Comment
Probably yes. :)
“No” is not a vocabulary word in Microsoft anymore.
It's how I still don't have copilot on my Windows install despite the update bringing it to windows came to the US months ago. Or how certain employee tracking features in Azure/Office 365 are not available in EU.
I only continue to use Windows for work because it is mandated. All new work laptops come with at least one day of entertainment called "setting up". Where the myriad options are explored for the possibility of duplicity, breaking data collection and plain old contrarianism.
You might be surprised. Satya reads Hacker News and there is an internal Microsoft initiative to promote Microsoft tech here[0]:
> In fact this morning I was reading a news article in Hacker News, which is a community where we have been working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have made a lot of progress. In some sense that at least basically said that we’re neck to neck with Amazon when it comes to even elite developers as represented in that community.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2019/earn...
Dead Comment
Well LLMs have already stolen everything you ever wrote or posted online.
We told y'all to advocate for a very strict regulation of these things.
But no.
Instead: It's amazing. It's world changing.
Yes. It's going to change the world. For much worse. If you thought Citizens United damaged democracy just wait. Elections will be won by those with the most compute aka the most money everywhere.
People will die of this bullshit. I can't foretell how but they will. I mean, I haven't foreseen AI generated mushroom books but I am absolute certain this technology is deadly. Just wait.
Everything AI generated should come with an unskippable, extremely obvious huge warning of being AI generated and free of facts. If the AI companies won't add these then we should force them by regulation. But no. Hype instead.
I kind of expected that someone will steal something I write or post online, so this doesn’t particularly bother me.
> But no.
Simply legislation doesn't work that fast. Building up consensus about what needs legislation and how it needs legislation takes time.
> Instead: It's amazing. It's world changing.
People don't all think with a single mind. The people who find it amazing are not necessarily the same who complains about it.
My two cents: no, the refusing option will be deep in the UI and surely you will need to use a combination of CTRL, ALTs, etc to make it visible before you check it out.
Many times it is more difficult to (securely, optimally, etc) configure a Microsoft Windows desktop than a Microsoft Server with Active Directory, and MS Exchange.
Data mining the users of the most popular desktop operating system is a too huge profit opportunity to miss for ethical reasons.
Deleted Comment
There are not many companies which I’ve grown to immensely dislike over the years like Microsoft. I started my career as a .NET developer and huge fan of their products, buying into all their crap from all the way from Silverlight to Windows Phone, WPF and even owned a Surface Pro 3 tablet/laptop but today there is really rarely a company that makes me reck as much as Microsoft with their product announcements. My opinion of this company couldn’t be any lower and I hugely judge any developer working in Windows. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself that unless they are a game developer there is objectively speaking absolutely no reason for a developer to work on a Surface device or Windows.
The Candy crush and other crappy apps/games in combination to being a full fledged spyware OS with adware on top is already enough to make me run away screaming.
Android and Chrome OS aren't really a replacement for desktop OSes, and Google is even worse in spying users anyway.
So uuh... where are you shipping software then?
Now imagine it happening for literally every interaction. Opened a context menu? Oh give me a second to check the LLM server for useful actions I can offer you. Want to close a window? One sec just wanna analyze the content first to see if you reealy want to close it.
I am so happy that most gaming is now possible on Linux and I dont have to use Windows at all.
Deleted Comment
We'll probably never get such an emphatic apology, instead:
- there will be no response (same way mirroring a Disney movie in the Vision Pro is just a dark rectangle)
- it will tell us to just see with the administrator (the closest we have to "go fuck yourself", as we'll be the administrator)
- it will throw us a link to a help page with platitudes about how we're mostly free to do whatever we want, and ask us if the page was helpful to solve our problem.
- we'll be asked to repeat the request indefinitely with no response on the result.
In practice, some White Hat will find a way to disable this (yes, even if it's running locally).
1) You like all of this "AI" "stuff" and you use the newest version of the Windows Operating System.
2) You just want an Operating System that works so you continue to use Windows 10.
3) You use Windows within a corporate environment where the Security and IT teams neuter it with Domain settings to disable most of these "AI" "features".
Until Oct 14, 2025: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows...
If you felt so inclined you can also pay Microsoft for support after that date.
Or Microsoft might also extend support based on public demand, given that Windows 10 still beats Windows 11 in install base.
…what could possibly go wrong
Cloud 2 = Cloud 1, but delegate more compute/logic to edge/local computers to reduce cost. [1]
Cloud 3 = Cloud 2, but edge/local computer has hardware specifically made to do the compute, store intermediate data, and send the results to someone else who might give you something in return for free, and possibly make you pay for it later.
Marketing can call it Cloud <3 (heart). Some might say </3 (broken heart). [2]
> [~10 years ago] Smartphones began incorporating AI accelerators starting with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 in 2015. [3]
> An AI accelerator, deep learning processor, or neural processing unit (NPU) is a class of specialized hardware accelerator or computer system designed to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, including artificial neural networks and machine vision. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_computing
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons#Western
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_accelerator