Microsoft bolts Copilot Mode onto Edge to chase AI-browser crowd Microsoft on Monday introduced Copilot Mode in its Edge browser, a way to use voice or text commands to automate web-based tasks via AI. Under the direction of Copilot Mode, Edge "doesn’t just wait idly for you to click but anticipates what you might want to do next," explains Sean Lyndersay, VP of product for Microsoft Edge, …
I'd love to introduce some friction to the flow of AI BS we're exposed to of late.
And surveys, My God, there are surveys EVERYWHERE in MS products. If there were productivity enhancing on/off switches in Windows, the 'kill surveys' switch would be right under 'kill off AI and related invites'..
I was going with:
Aw hell no, no no a thousand times no!
Why do I have visions of Clippy on steroids?
An example shown in one of the published videos for a pending capability called Actions – which requires granting Copilot permission to access browser history and credentials – involves handling prompts like this: "Can you find a place to paddleboard, close to work, that has afternoon rental?"
The model responds, "I see you’re interested in paddling, I recommend Mistress Niamh who is very strict with Naugty Boys is not far from your work and can be booked for the afternoon. Should I book it for you?" without citing any basis for that incorrect recommendation.
The user answers, "No I’m interested in paddlboarding, you know watersports."
The model then presumably checks the new information in the appropriate area and replies, "It looks like Mistress Niamh doesn’t do watersports, so instead I've booked Mistress Samantha who does, next Wednesday at 6pm. I’ve added it to your work calendar so that people know where you are."
That happened to me when I bought a new refrigerator, and got many, many ads from an online seller a short time later about... refrigerators.
And once, when I bought a new car. I went to the dealership to explain the sheer idiocy of offering to sell me another car after a few days. They didn't understand why I was annoyed, so I just asked them to remove me from their mailing list.
Now get off my lawn.
I'm in the process of shopping some car manufacturers to the regulator.
One at least rates itself so low its logo is only one star, and it has been harassing me now for about a decade, so it'll be a nice fat PDF that will join the evidence, including repeated requests to stop this.
Another one because they require a metric boatload of personal data to get the interface going, none of which was in the sales documentation - and still isn't. If the EU is mandating to rob our personal vehicle data it ought at a minimum be required to mention that in the sales literature *before* you spend a small fortune on a vehicle that drops faster in value than a brick subjected to gravity (as most EVs do and no, it ain't a Tesla, never liked them, even without taking into account Musk's involvement).
“It looks like it'll be a sunny 98 degrees so I've booked paddleboarding next Wednesday at 6pm.”
Amazon Prime (it subscribed you) delivers a sex toy to your sister (it got the address from your contacts), as it’s her birthday next Wednesday and also orders 98 mouse traps as your video search for Mickey Mouse in your history indicates you’ve a mouse problem.
I did. It was a decent browser for a while. However I suspected from the start that it would get progressively less decent, and indeed I eventually elected to abandon ship - currently using Vivaldi.
P.S. I hope the "Microsoft edge is a Google Chrome downloader" joke is told with a suitable degree of irony.
Sadly I have to as it's part of the "We sold ourselves totally to Microsoft" model the company I work for is using - FF will automatically be removed.
In my defense, it is why there is zip corporate stuff on any of my personal devices - it's only on work computers and when I work from home they use the guest network. No Microsoft, no Adobe, no Oracle. OK, that's a default on Linux, but I've had plenty attempts to convince me to load Redmond code on the Macs: ain't gonna happen - ever. And if I need Java (can't imagine what for, but let's assume I do), it'll be the open version, not the commercial variant. If some things don't work, excellent - a good argument to find alternatives..
You should check your running processes, you may be un-pleasantly un-suprised.
I have a clean up tool that says Edge is running would I like to close it (along with any other open browsers that I have opened.).
I never open or use Edge directly, yet there it is doing something in the background...or at least it was before I stopped using my last Windows box a couple weeks back and am on Linux for everything now.
for their entry: "all built to the highest Microsoft standards of security, privacy and performance trusted by billions of people and businesses worldwide – with you as the user always in control."
in the "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With " challenge are accorded the privilege of standing beside the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation when they receive their well deserved, and long overdue, reward.
It conveniently won't mention that "Adventure Works" has a zero out of ten star rating with 10,000+ reviews because they paid Microsoft (or OpenAI or whatever) a lot of money to push them to the top of the stack.
I would never trust "AI" to recommend anything - why should I? AI demonstratively lies, cheats, steals, and it has no morals or ethics what-so-ever because it's just a stochastic parrot.
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