4 ms·

Every time I see these I am thinking to myself: Is microsoft copilot a problem of implementation or the capability of the models? I have ZERO doubt that if you

Every time I see these I am thinking to myself: Is microsoft copilot a problem of implementation or the capability of the models? I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one and you had copilot everywhere and I mean not the way it is now instead you're presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox rather than trying to figure out how to use a computer which is why I am not quick to discredit "microslop", they're most likely pivoting windows to how it will look like in the future. Obviously, the strongest argument here is that it should have been an entirely different product such as "Windows AI" where the entire system is designed around it. But if you look at their current implementation it's more of a copilot which is just there, letting you know it exists. Obviously not all of these features were thought through such as recall, that should have been dead and burried since it doesn't offer that much real value a magical box that takes in english sentences and does roughly what you want. At the end of the day it's a question if AI will/is doing more harm than good. AI has really only existed in this form for a little more than 3 years and really started shining since the advent of Opus 4.5. We went from having models producing more security vulnerabilities than one can count to fixing obscure human made ones and the capabilities will keep increasing (if anthropic is to be believed). We will enter an era where it will have 95%+ accuracy in doing what a typical computer user would want from AI and there's really nothing anyone can do to stop it. So my opinion is that AI will be the next big thing and it might spread way beyond what we can even imagine. I think that we will have things similar to non technical people that just talk on the phone with an AI agent to get a website done, register a domain and have a website done within a 1 hour phone call all for pennies while the AI has access to their financials, mail and other things. All of that is relatively possible today with the simple caviat of security and I do believe we have enough smart people in the world that can figure out how to make AI better at rejecting social engineering than 99% of humans.

chromacity 7mo ago
> I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one ... presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox I don't know. We've been telling ourselves things like that about user interfaces for a long time. For decades, it was pretty much universally understood that everyone would prefer to talk to their computer instead of using a keyboard. Now that you can, no one really wants to. In fact, now that we can text / email / IM other people, we don't talk to them as much as before. One obvious problem with the interface you're proposing is that sometimes, it's easier to do the thing than to explain precisely what you want. For example, it takes much longer to ask ChatGPT what's the weather forecast for this week, and then read the flowery response, than to press Ctrl-N, "wea", enter, and see it at a glance in a consistent format with pictograms.
- himata4113 7mo ago
  You already know how to use a computer or a phone, but take someone who has never seen or used a smartphone, computer or a laptop. I think the story will be very different.
  - chromacity 7mo ago
    I don't know. In a vacuum, if we prevent them from ever finding out that there's a faster way with less cognitive overhead? Sure. Until they have to explain to an agent precisely which shoes they want the AI agent to buy them... In any case, in practice, people pick up stuff from each other. I'm old enough that learning to use the computer mouse needed to be a deliberate effort on my end. I never really had to "teach" that to my kids, they just picked it up naturally. So you might even have a difficulty producing that "computer-naive" subject in the first place.
    - pixl97 7mo ago
      > I never really had to "teach" that to my kids, It's better to look at these things statistically rather than anecdotally. And statistically the Xennial group seems to have the highest penetration of computer skills, even more so than the generations that followed them. Simply put the new tablet generation is more apt to use apps and not understand the premises of how they work. If you find yourself going to an actual computer to make 'large' purchases you're part of a group that is not growing in size.

chromacity 7mo ago

> I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one ... presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox I don't know. We've been telling ourselves things like that about user interfaces for a long time. For decades, it was pretty much universally understood that everyone would prefer to talk to their computer instead of using a keyboard. Now that you can, no one really wants to. In fact, now that we can text / email / IM other people, we don't talk to them as much as before. One obvious problem with the interface you're proposing is that sometimes, it's easier to do the thing than to explain precisely what you want. For example, it takes much longer to ask ChatGPT what's the weather forecast for this week, and then read the flowery response, than to press Ctrl-N, "wea", enter, and see it at a glance in a consistent format with pictograms.

himata4113 7mo ago
You already know how to use a computer or a phone, but take someone who has never seen or used a smartphone, computer or a laptop. I think the story will be very different.
- chromacity 7mo ago
  I don't know. In a vacuum, if we prevent them from ever finding out that there's a faster way with less cognitive overhead? Sure. Until they have to explain to an agent precisely which shoes they want the AI agent to buy them... In any case, in practice, people pick up stuff from each other. I'm old enough that learning to use the computer mouse needed to be a deliberate effort on my end. I never really had to "teach" that to my kids, they just picked it up naturally. So you might even have a difficulty producing that "computer-naive" subject in the first place.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    > I never really had to "teach" that to my kids, It's better to look at these things statistically rather than anecdotally. And statistically the Xennial group seems to have the highest penetration of computer skills, even more so than the generations that followed them. Simply put the new tablet generation is more apt to use apps and not understand the premises of how they work. If you find yourself going to an actual computer to make 'large' purchases you're part of a group that is not growing in size.