4 ms·

What is recall ai?

tedivm 2y ago
It's a system microsoft designed that took regular screenshots of what was happening on the desktop, stored them in a sqlite database, and then allowed people to ask their "AI" questions that would take into account literally everything they user has ever done on their computer. People pointed out that this would record things like people watching porn, typing in banking credentials, viewing bills, filing taxes, etc etc. The thread of having these sqlite database leaked, combined with the amount of malware and randomware already out there, made a lot of security folks get very very concerned.
- simonw 2y ago
  I didn't think Recall was about answering questions - there was no LLM component - so much as it was about being able to search your history, based on a combination of SQLite FTS against OCRd text plus CLIP-style embeddings-based semantic search against the content of those images.
  - tedivm 2y ago
    > Microsoft says Recall lets you find anything you've seen or done on your PC with a simple search query, and it's powered by state-of-the-art large language models, which can understand various content on your PC, like text, images, and videos. It works in any application, so you can search across your computer. https://www.wired.com/story/everything-announced-microsoft-surface-event-2024/ https://www.wired.com/story/everything-announced-microsoft-s...
    - simonw 2y ago
      Weird. I got the impression they were using embedding models (which I think of as LLM-adjacent) but not actual LLMs. See notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/5/ai-features-in-microsoft-recall/ https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/5/ai-features-in-microsof...
      - tedivm 2y ago
        I haven't actually dug into it myself, so it could just be that marketers or journalists got mixed up somewhere.
- barbariangrunge 2y ago
  That’s horrifying
xcv123 2y ago
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-steps-with-recall-aa03f8a0-a78b-4b3e-b0a1-2eb8ac48701c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-ste...

What is recall ai?

It's a system microsoft designed that took regular screenshots of what was happening on the desktop, stored them in a sqlite database, and then allowed people to ask their "AI" questions that would take into account literally everything they user has ever done on their computer. People pointed out that this would record things like people watching porn, typing in banking credentials, viewing bills, filing taxes, etc etc. The thread of having these sqlite database leaked, combined with the amount of malware and randomware already out there, made a lot of security folks get very very concerned.

simonw 2y ago
I didn't think Recall was about answering questions - there was no LLM component - so much as it was about being able to search your history, based on a combination of SQLite FTS against OCRd text plus CLIP-style embeddings-based semantic search against the content of those images.
- tedivm 2y ago
  > Microsoft says Recall lets you find anything you've seen or done on your PC with a simple search query, and it's powered by state-of-the-art large language models, which can understand various content on your PC, like text, images, and videos. It works in any application, so you can search across your computer. https://www.wired.com/story/everything-announced-microsoft-surface-event-2024/ https://www.wired.com/story/everything-announced-microsoft-s...
  - simonw 2y ago
    Weird. I got the impression they were using embedding models (which I think of as LLM-adjacent) but not actual LLMs. See notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/5/ai-features-in-microsoft-recall/ https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/5/ai-features-in-microsof...
    - tedivm 2y ago
      I haven't actually dug into it myself, so it could just be that marketers or journalists got mixed up somewhere.
barbariangrunge 2y ago
That’s horrifying

xcv123 2y ago

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-steps-with-recall-aa03f8a0-a78b-4b3e-b0a1-2eb8ac48701c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-ste...