9 ms·
Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to Its New AI Assistant
- cyanydeez 5mo ago"We forced all the employees into AI, and now apparently, our internal AI usage is high; this means this project will get high usage from general consumers." When your dogfood is really an opiate, you might have a problem.
- Traubenfuchs 5mo agoIt‘s not an opiate, it‘s salvia divinorum or rather something even more awful like diphenhydramin. Psychonaut wiki: Notably, it is frequently reported to produce significant nausea and bodily discomfort ("body load"). Most people who try diphenhydramine do not report positive effects and do not wish to repeat the experience. It is generally considered to have low abuse potential due to its dysphoric effects.
- RajT88 4mo agoBenadryl?
- CrzyLngPwd 5mo agoDon't all businesses with AI want people addicted to it?
- ChrisArchitect 5mo agoSome more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374079
- analogpixel 5mo agoSimple, add an Anime Girl that pretends to like you.
- warumdarum 5mo agoThey botched the phone, thry botched AI, just overall so obsessed with themselves, they tend to forget the customers
- nullable_bool 5mo agoRemember when they tried banning the term "Microslop". Thats the type of delusion youre dealing with.
- warumdarum 5mo agoThe operating system of the company is still : "win & bulldooze" while not honestly developing USPs that would bind customers to them
- GuestFAUniverse 5mo agoAn ad free, minimal notification, calm design and thus _Pro_ like in (former times) _pro_fessional signature edition OS would be too simple. Instead we get a marketing platform. Because "growth"... whatever that means until (and after) the next bubble pops. Plus: that euphemistic /bubble/ is more like a puss and cancer ridden zombie needing constant life support. Keep the numbers high, yeah! Cheer the numbers!
- warumdarum 5mo agoCertainly has a cooperate socialist product feel too it..
- x______________ 5mo agoAfter some time in the industry, once you reach a certain amount of zeros in your revenue, the org mindset almost always changes from something of a survival state into messiah-mode where everything it does and produces must-be and will-be accepted as the next best thing since sliced bread, at no matter the cost. It's a human trait, Microsoft is not immune.
- croes 5mo agoKeep some hate for the other companies. They want the same, they are just not as open about it as MS
- righthand 4mo agoThat’s probably why they pushed out Phil Spencer and handed over the Xbox division to a very pro-AI employee.
- OgsyedIE 4mo agoTo be fair, the fundamentals that pre-2019 Xbox (and all other consumer gaming) relies on were already slowly going away and have recently been confirmed to have an extremely tiny chance of recovery, if at all. Embracing the pivot to gambling and tobacco-style customer retention philosophies is purely an effort to salvage the sunk costs in an industry whose traditional customer base is being forced to shrink and input costs are being forced to rise by largely macroeconomic headwinds.
- radlad 4mo agoWhat fundamentals are those?
- dmbche 4mo agoThe console market is shrinking and video games are becoming synonymous with PC gaming ( and handhelds I guess but Xbox isn't doing handhelds I think)
- strictnein 4mo agoXbox has handhelds, but they're made by partners and are more about streaming games. Example: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/handhelds/rog-xbox-ally https://www.xbox.com/en-US/handhelds/rog-xbox-ally
- noitpmeder 4mo agoLiterally every company on the planet would jump at the chance for their product to be addictive.
- Defletter 4mo agoWho'd've guessed that the profit motive being the primary if not sole concern would sometimes (often) create incentives that are hostile to humanity.
- chatmasta 4mo agoYeah but you’re not supposed to say it out loud. The bigger part of this story is Nadella saying (paraphrased) that he has no clue who wrote the document and that guy should look for a new job.
- whynotmaybe 4mo agoImagine a world where every car company would get money every time someone uses their car. Instead of monthly subscription for self driving or heated seat, it would just cost a few cents a minute. This would be a strong push to try to destroy public transportation everywhere
- gruez 4mo ago>Imagine a world where every car company would get money every time someone uses their car. So oil companies? Moreover car companies do get more money with more car use. More driving means more parts required, more servicing needed (from their dealership network), and cars that need to be replaced sooner. It's not as instantaneous as uber charging your card every time you do a ride, but I don't see how that makes a material difference.
- whynotmaybe 4mo agoThey don't get everything, spare parts are made by other companies, same with tires, servicing can be done outside their network... Microsoft handles more verticality.
- 4mo ago
- stevenkkim 4mo agoStep 1: make copilot in window actually useful.
- saurik 4mo agoMaybe trying to engineer addiction is what should be illegal, and if you want to question "how do you define whether something is addictive" you don't need an objective measure: you determine whether it seems like the people making the product seem to think that's their goal.
- tetris11 4mo ago"you know it when you see it"
- dmbche 4mo agoMore demonstrating intent
- saurik 4mo agoI guess I worded that poorly; it isn't merely that we don't need an objective measure: we literally don't need a measure at all, as the crime would be attempting to cause it, whether or not it was even possible to do, and so we simply do not care if the activity was addictive. If you are going out of your way to exploit the psychology or physiology of other humans in an attempt to use that to sell your product, maybe that is what should be illegal. This would then mean that "our expert witness has strong evidence that my client's product area is not 'addictive', so my client could not ever be said to be engineering addiction" would not be a defense any more than "the plan my client came up with to kill their alleged victim could not possibly have worked, so my client can not be charged with attempted murder" is (at least generally, afaik) not a defense.
- j16sdiz 4mo agoThis just shifts the question to: what counts as attempt to cause an addiction? Does writing a book aims to make people read addictive? Try to design a gym class that makes you feel good about yourself so you will come again? You still need to define what is addictive
- 4mo ago
- LetsGetTechnicl 4mo agoSo their "humanistic" approach is just marketing, huge surprise /s
- HlessClaudesman 4mo agoCopilot, I want you to find product market fit, don't return an answer until you have found it.
- 341287 4mo ago[flagged]
- antonyt 4mo agoWhat does his status as a foreigner have to do with ruining Windows? You can't think of any homegrown American CEOs that systematically ruin their products and companies?
- vitally3643 4mo agoYou should be less racist and xenophobic
- esafak 4mo agoGood on Nadella: After expressing his complete disbelief that such a document could have been written, Nadella adds that the elusive and mysterious authors “may want to go work elsewhere.” edit: VP of a product I had not even heard of; it's no Copilot. I would not assume it was on Nadella's radar.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- fyrn_ 4mo agoThe author is his vice president of Microsoft Scout, "with AI assistance, but fully reviewed" as has been reported elsewhere. He's blatantly pretending not to know
- neilv 4mo agoThere are plenty reasons to be critical of Microsoft's AI strategy and tactics (and especially of many other things MS has done), but the linked article seems to be targeted at gamer, rather than at people who care about non-gaming tech industry or public policy. What seemed a bit more relevant was one of the linked 404 articles, concerning CEO's denial and attempts to dismiss the document, before the document was revealed to be co-authored by the head of the strategic project. But even that article sounds more like social media or political mud-slinging in style, rather than journalism: > In attempting to distance himself from his own company’s executives and strategy documents, Nadella has revealed that he either does not know how to read or does not know what is happening with some of the company’s highest-profile products. But what I didn't see what a smoking gun that they were truly looking for addictive (like, say, Facebook/Meta has been caught engineering) rather than something they could've described as essential if they weren't using amped-up business bro language. So rage-baiting over the word "addictive" seems to be missing better questions.
- logicchains 4mo agoThey haven't been doing a very good job. Maybe they asked "CoPilot, please make our AI products like a drug", but it misunderstood and instead of making them addictive like cocaine, it made them uncomfortable to use like a laxative.
- legitster 4mo agoI'm not sure what the smoking gun is here. Usefulness and dependence are mostly interchangeable. I'm "addicted" to computers, indoor plumbing, headphones, entertainment, etc. The crime here seems to be that they used a wrong word - would it have been better if they used "snackable", "irresistible", "enthusiast", or "binge-worthy"?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Certhas 4mo agoThis makes no sense. How are dependence and usefulness interchangable? There is some overlap, sure. But are you seriously claiming that there is no meaningful distinction between using headphones and using slot machines?
- legitster 4mo agoYes, there's obviously a difference between addiction and a substance use disorder. But part of a key definition of a substance use disorder is that it has to cause harm. Something merely being addicting isn't enough for intervention. It's why nobody is bothered when coffee shops advertise the addictive nature of caffeine.
- satvikpendem 4mo agoThere are some good books on how to make products addictive, like Hooked. What's funny is the author, I guess, got backlash or had remorse writing that book so he put out another book called Indistractable but it's plainly obvious that you as a user would not be able to compete against legions of psychiatrists in these companies whose goal, day in and day out, is to addict you.
- josefritzishere 4mo agoSo... that's pretty disgusting. Why are these AI evangelists so gross? It's a useful technology... It's only the Simpsons-Monorail sales pitch that makes it feel icky.
- lousken 4mo agoWell they just achieved the opposite of that with github copilot, congrats
- thewebguyd 4mo agoStatement from Nadella: https://www.404media.co/satya-nadella-not-sure-who-said-microsoft-wanted-to-make-addictive-ai-is-looking-for-guy-who-did-this/ https://www.404media.co/satya-nadella-not-sure-who-said-micr...
- yieldcrv 4mo ago> Microsoft's CEO seems unaware of what's going on at his own company. damn, he quickly disavowed the statement and got panned anyway would falling on the sword worked better??
- lepus 4mo agoBeing aware of what the basic strategy is with one of their most high profile products would have worked better.
- phatskat 4mo agoPeople keep telling me it’s why we even have C-level folks at the top!
- sumeno 4mo agoHe's lying or incompetent, your choice
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- gurjeet 4mo agoBoth of those things can be true at the same time for some people.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- quantified 4mo agoNadella is good at messaging. It is difficult to actually believe he wants to do anything but push it as far and wide as possible, and addiction is fine. It's just spin on the wording.
- RajT88 4mo agoI have been using it for some weeks now. It is "addictive" in the sense that it works really well, and has some guardrails so the risk of it doing something insane is minimized. I have done some cool stuff with it!
- Sharlin 4mo agoWhat, a Microsoft AI product that isn't branded "Copilot"?!
- turzmo 4mo agoClippy would have been perfect for the role!
- iainctduncan 4mo agoClippy, that cute little crack dealer from the 90's!
- Havoc 4mo agoLately they've also been talking about autopilots.
- bobro 4mo agoFrom the article this one links to: >Microsoft has been piloting Scout as an internal tool for employees it was calling “ClawPilot,” since March. ClawPilot—and now Scout—are part of “Project Lobster,” which is a Microsoft plan to bring the popular OpenClaw AI tool to its Microsoft 365 suite of products in a way that nontechnical people can use.
- Morromist 4mo agoScout sounds like an excitable little dog that runs headlong into trees when trying to catch a frisbee. Given Microsoft's long history of failure with personal assistants I'm looking forward to this one! Clippy, Cortana, Copilot! Wasn't an animated dog called rover one of these way back? The best of all was unquestionably Ms. Dewey for Microsoft Windows Live Search who is almost forgotten.
- aaaronic 4mo agoI thought his name was Watson (the dog assistant). Edit: I was wrong. But there is "Power Pup" and apparently Will Shakespeare
- throaway197512 4mo agoIt was Rover
- not_a_bot_4sho 4mo agoPower pup was the superdog. Rocky was the normal dog. (I was way too into the building apps with the assistant framework as a kid...)
- e9 4mo agoDon't forget about Tay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)
- blauditore 4mo agoShit, that was 10 years ago already? Feels more recent, also in terms of technology.
- epcoa 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob You can go straight to hell for making me feel old.
- grassfedgeek 4mo ago"Addiction" is a bad word. It implies the user is not in control of themselves. Anyone who makes products want users of our product to keep coming back as though they are addicted, but not actually addicted.
- antiframe 4mo ago> Anyone who makes products want users of our product to keep coming back as though they are addicted, but not actually addicted. Can you explain the distinction? I am not seeing it. If I keep refreshing a product page to get another dopamine hit, am I addicted or not addicted but appearing so to your metrics?
- joe_the_user 4mo agoI think the point the gp is making that companies want their users addicted but never should say "addicted" since it has undesirable implications.
- grassfedgeek 4mo agoAre you addicted to your job? You keep going back every single work day. Does that mean you are addicted? Just because you keep repeating an action doesn't mean you're addicted. It just means it is solving a problem for you (such as providing you with a salary to buy food and pay rent) and does it well.
- antiframe 4mo agoI am not addicted to my job but my employer would like me to be. I think apps are a different beast. They (generally, with few exceptions) want their users to be addicted. An addicted user is more likely to come back than one that gets a need met. Once that need is fulfilled, they leave. If companies actually wanted to fill people's needs they wouldn't use dark patterns like having to call to cancel, spamming them without their consent, switching opt-out choices back with updates, etc. Because they use these dirty tricks, it's hard to believe they have the users best interest in mind. They don't. They just want the line to go up.
- mattvr 4mo agoThis helps explain the dissonance in Microsoft's recent Humanist Superintelligence article about creating "AI companions for everyone". https://microsoft.ai/news/towards-humanist-superintelligence/ https://microsoft.ai/news/towards-humanist-superintelligence... In an otherwise pleasant, humanist framing, they jarringly conclude Microsoft's primary AI application will be putting people into parasocial AI relationships for profit.
- TZubiri 4mo agoFeedback to microsoft: I'm confused and dissapointed that this isn't called Copilot, the users want more things to be called copilot even if they aren't related to each other, consider renaming Scout to Copilot, or at least Scout Copilot, or even better Copilot* (*Copilot Scout)
- bdangubic 4mo agoCo-Pilot is a perfect name because it, just like actual Co-Pilots, perform their best when they do nothing
- kbelder 4mo agoI think Teams should be renamed Scout Messaging, and Outlook to Scout Messaging: Legacy.
- ajcp 4mo agoIt's technically called Autopilot* Scout if you can believe it...
- tartoran 4mo agoMicrosoft can't learn a thing from their own history. Perhaps if they made a product that was useful and not deceiving their users they'd have more success. It seems they aren't capable of that anymore.
- phyzix5761 4mo agoMaking a useful product is far more difficult than tapping into our base desires as human beings. Microsoft hasn't been an innovative company in a long time and that's by design.
- ajkjk 4mo agoThey are also just bad at almost everything they do. I'd really be worried if a competent company was trying to make people addicted. Although maybe it doesn't take much, given that it sounded at one point like the Microsoft execs were addicted already.
- recursive 4mo agoI'd really be worried if a competent company was trying to make people addicted. This is absolutely a thing. Social media, mobile games, LLMs, tobacco.
- ajkjk 4mo agoOh yes sorry. I meant addicted to AI. No doubt they are, though, anyway.
- hackyhacky 4mo ago> They are also just bad at almost everything they do Huh? Have you forgotten Clippy, the first AI agent? /s
- torben-friis 4mo agoThey're those guys that spend hundreds of hours in pickup artist courses rather than being a person people would like to be with, yeah.
- hgoel 4mo agoIt's kind of sad that they didn't call this Cortana. I guess they made that name too toxic?
- skynotblue 4mo agoWould be worrisome if they were good at building stuff.
- danielrmay 4mo agoI'm really worried about what happens when we mix these kind of dependency-oriented business strategies with the sensitivity of a human's personal context. With no "file format" equivalent for personal context, how do I ever switch "assistant" in this provisional future?