Microsoft is about to go even more hog-wild with “AI” in Windows, as it intends to start recording everything you do on your Windows computer so “AI” features can find stuff for you.
According to my sources, AI Explorer will run in the background and capture everything you do on your computer. It will document and triage everything it sees, no matter what apps or interfaces you’re looking at, and turn them into memories that you can recall at a later point.
For example, you can have a conversation with a friend in the WhatsApp app for Windows, and AI Explorer will record and remember the content that was on-screen and process it with AI for you to recall later. AI Explorer can also summarize conversations, emails, web pages, and general UI surfaces just by asking for it during or after the fact.
I’m told that much of this experience is rendered on-device and does not reach out to the cloud to process information. This is important for privacy reasons, but also for performance reasons. To reduce latency, AI Explorer will rely on NPU silicon to process content that has been recorded. I also understand that users will be able to filter out specific apps from being recorded by the AI Explorer process, or disable AI Explorer entirely.
↫ Zac Bowden at Windows Central
Is this really something people wan to devote constant resources and thus battery life to?Setting aside the privacy implications of something like this, do people really want to have a permanent record of everything they’ve done on their machine? Maybe I’m just the odd one out here, but nothing about this appeals to me in any way, shape, or form. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – something like this would make make me run for the hills, looking for an alternative to the operating system I’m using.
And the weasel words “much of this experience is rendered on-device” definitely did not go by unnoticed. This wording makes it very clear at least some data will be sent to Microsoft for processing, and over time, that amount will only increase. No data company has ever reduced the amount of data it captures, after all.
Microsoft really wants to go big in its CCP era.
I may have mentioned before this news item that this is the direction ai is going into, whether google, apple or microsoft: profiles based on 24hour/day surveillance which they claim to be “private” because processing will be done on-device by those fancy ai circuits that have been integrated into all newer processors.
You can rest assured that any ai features will get to be optimized to increase the profit margins of the companies in question, not for actual usefulness.
I believe that the latter bit is called enshittification nowadays.
I wonder how useful an “AI” would be trained on the data and behavior of people who are stupid enough to accept this.
Very useful. Insight in the average mind? What moves them? What they do and desire? How to market to them? Knowing everything about billions of people is bound to line your wallet with ample cash. What if you could ask a simile of the average person out there what would motivate them to buy anything?
Microsoft really wants to receive an extradition request from EU… Free espionage by a foreign country is never approved by any nation.
Maybe? This kind of AI i a new technology, so everybody is just throwing a bunch of it at a bunch of different walls to see what sticks.
The much better, indexed search capabilities that came with Vista (but was made available via a separate download with XP IIRC) were a godsend.
I never used the Timeline feature added to Windows 10, but if people are indeed using it, this absolutely seem like a logical next step.
It’s certainly better than the AI mouse button, right?
I really love the button hha
When I read this I Instantly thought of the file search indexing!!
I remember the concerns over privacy back then and how it’s now a feature every Desktop OS (free or otherwise) now includes in some capacity.
We will see if the decision of those like Gentoo to not include AI becomes a millstone in the future.
Well, the truth is that whatever Microsoft decides to do, no matter how silly, there will be no real resistance involved in regards to Windows user base. Anything goes.
Wow, really, wow. That a#@hole, Nadella is not really hiding anything this time. Microsoft has gone from obscure telemetry data to presenting razor sharp user activity profiling and straight up surveillance as workflow enhancements. Every agency and company – public and private – should get their head out of their ass and find suitable software replacement of Microsoft products in the forthcoming dystopian future. However, how do you fight this, when you can’t fix stupid?
It is time to switch to Linux / BSD.
For us, OS News readers, sure.
I am alarmed as to how quickly the corporate masters of our operating systems are running to incorporate AI into everything we didn’t ask for. I fled from the abomination of Windows 11 not long after upgrading to it from Windows 10, every passing day further convinces me I made the right choice. Privacy is becoming a construct that exists only in our minds.
Will the US government care about how extremely this will violate HIPPA medical privacy laws, when the OS is used in medical offices? I think not, thanks to corporations partial control of Congress, and both parties, with billions of “lobby” dollars.
Well, as much as I hate Microsoft and the AI craze, I’m sure they’ll include a way to turn off this abomination, at least for the non-home-oriented versions of Windows.
Interesting part will be when this gets mandated by gov. Because you have nothing to hide, right? And it’s for the greater good, right?
I don’t want to be a devils advocate but: aren’t computers ALREADY have all the informations about us? In their memory and storage. When we talk via messaging apps, all the messages are usually just in plain-sight in a database somewhere on the disk. Same for browsing history, our photos and all the little things we’re doing on computers.
If – and ONLY IF – this kind of “AI processing” will happen ON DEVICE, there’s no difference here to be honest. This kind of data will be “hashed” and would make AI assistants incredibly useful – knowing the context we’re in.
I think you make a good point, and it’s important to keep things in perspective. I think the real issue is that this is yet another step in the gradual process of our personal data being sent to and tracked by corporations and governments. In other words, it’s not a BIG issue, but it’s one more small step in the grand scheme of something that is a BIG issue.
Remember when computers just sat on our desks and did what we told them to do? Sigh. I’m gonna go give my Game Boy a hug.
Just this weekend I set up a new (to me) computer that came with Win 11 pre-installed. I decided to keep the partition to test out the state of CAD programs in windows. Having followed Dedoimedo’s isntructions for taming Win 11 I was still suprised to see it proudly telling me about software it was installing unbidden by me. I was also surprised at the bloatedness of the interface – massive padding, vast amounts of white space everywhere, and the cheesey language it uses “we’re just setting things up for you”, “it’s going to be great,” etc. It billed itself as Windows “Professional” but it’s anything but. It’s intrusive, ugly, lowest common denominator, manipulative American commercialism tied up in an operating system. But you already know this. I would have thought it impossible to worsen the experience, yet her on OSnews this morning I see that they have plans to do just that. Plans to harness some of the most advanced technology on the planet to the cause of commercial gain and dumbing-down. My God!
This sounds like major suck to me (and not in a good way). I may very well have to go back to using Linux or one of the BSDs.
No. Just, absolutely, one hundred and one percent no.
This was bound to happen, if not already been happening with Windows Defender and other antivirus companies. Win10 is the end of teh road for my Microsoft ride. Cant wait for ReactOS to catch up. We all saw it coming. That ubiquitous term Ai, being used as an excuse to engage into deplorable privacy threatening acts. If not that, utilizing your PC, as a glorified Seti at Home project. I’m against dedicating my CPU cycles, paid for resources, and bandwitdth toanything that wouldn’t be for profitby me, or beneficial to me that I can quantify.