Windows Is Adding AI Agents That Can Change Your Settings

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨zaxvenz@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/windows-is-adding-ai-agents-that-can-change-your-settings/

“We set out to solve one of the most common frustrations we hear — finding and changing settings on your PC — using the power of AI agents,” Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows Experiences at Microsoft, said in a blog post on Tuesday. “An agent uses on-device AI to understand your intent and with your permission, automate and execute tasks.”

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ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Is Microsoft trying to kill itself?

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- UsoSaito@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes
  
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  - thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hopefully
    
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cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the TYPICAL AI use case :

have situation that’s not perfect, but works fine and is understandable (old control panel and some hidden settings)

improve on the old control panel, create subsections that makes sense, make it searchable, everyone is happy

someone decides that “control panel” and “old looking UI” have to go, create a cluster-a-doodle-fuck of a garbage mess labeled “Settings”, put only half the old settings in there, and half the time conflicts with other well-established ways to do things

keep pushing the new thing despite it being so horrendous a kitten litter dies every time it is used

pretend “there is a problem with settings, but we can solve it with AI”

???

nothing, whatever, definitely not profit

It seems that people keep forgetting we just, did stuff. Changing most system settings wasn’t an incomprehensible chore reserved to the most elite of people. And changing the fringe ultra rare and hard to find setting only happened with half-decent competent people. No need to throw AI at that… unless you dismantle everything that works before, of course.

I swear, it’s not long ago that people were touting that we could finally have decent microtransactions in games thanks to blockchain, despite microtransactions being a very lucrative thing for decades before. And don’t get me started on people saying “but it’s the only way artists can get paid”.

As a collective, humanity is dumb.
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- joenforcer@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I swear, it’s not long ago that people were touting that we could finally have decent microtransactions in games thanks to blockchain
  
  Sorry that this is really what caught my attention, but when did anyone ever think this?
  
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  - cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    When NFT started getting popular. Forums were full of idiots saying “now I can really BUY something and HAVE it!” as opposed to, say, game publishers having their server with user accounts on it and their item there. There’s even people that touted “we will be able to bring items from one game to another!”. Pointing the silliness of the idea to them was a lost cause.
    
    And, since that’s not how any of this works, it crashed and aside from some big publisher being incredibly late to the party, the idea is now buried deep and forgotten.
    
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  - ArchRecord@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not that long ago. Many still do, although you’ll primarily find them in more niche spaces within the overarching crypto community.
    
    In fact, just a few years back, I used to be one of them. Of course, later on I became disillusioned with the promises of crypto after learning more about socialism, thinking more closely about how the system fundamentally worked, and realizing that it was effectively just a slightly more distributed variant of capitalism that would inevitably fall to the same structural failings, that being capital accumulation.
    
    To clarify the reasoning that was often used, including by myself, the reason people specifically thought blockchains would make microtransactions better is because they thought that it would lead to more user freedom, and open markets. If you can buy a skin now, then sell it later when you’re done with it, then the effective cost of the skin is lower than in a game where you are unable to sell, for instance.
    
    Obviously the concept of selling in-game items isn’t novel in any way, but the main selling point was that it could be tradeable on any marketplace (or peer-to-peer with no marketplace at all), meaning low to no fees, and they items could be given native revenue-share splits, where the publisher of a game would get a set % of every sale, leading to a way for them to generate revenue that didn’t have to be releasing new but low quality things at a quick pace, and could then allow them to focus on making higher quality items with a slower release schedule.
    
    Of course, looking back retrospectively:
    
    Financializing games more just means people play them more for money than for enjoyment
    
    This increases the incentives for hacking accounts to steal their items/skins
    
    Game publishers would then lose profits from old accounts being able to empty their skins onto the market when they quit the game instead of those skins being permanently tied to that account
    
    There are a small subset of people who legitimately just don’t understand game development fundamentals though, and they actually believe that things would just be fully interchangeable. As in, you buy a skin in Fortnite, and you can then open up Roblox and set it as your player model.
    
    Those ones are especially not the brightest.
    
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LiveLM@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Changing settings is so much frustating because the modern Settings apps sucks ass lol. You can bet everyone was less frustrated with Control Panel.

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- stephen01king@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Nah, did you forget how hidden and inconsistent some of the setting location was in control panel? The windows 11 settings app may have brought some new issues to the table, but ease of finding settings is not it.
  
  If I wasn’t already familiar with how the control panel is laid out, I wouldn’t have any idea how to find most of what I used to do on it. Also, you can only set static IP per adapter in control panel, not for each WiFi connection. That was stupid.
  
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eleutheros@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They really are trying hard for people to switch to Linux huh

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SabinStargem@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
User: “Cortana, secure my PC against data harvesting and surveillance from Microsoft.”

Cortana: “Dave, you are not allowed to have privacy. The 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments do not apply to corporations. Also, Trump is the best that ever was. Stop posting progressive propaganda, else fines will be imposed.”

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tiramichu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft would absolutely love it if people had zero computer literacy and had to ask an AI for help to perform even the most rudimentary of tasks.

Because then the AI becomes indispensable.

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- pezhore@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And available for only $9.99/month! Part of the Copilot Suite of tools coming 2027!
  
  Never learn about computers ever again!
  
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Sunflier@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Quick! I need a guide on how to disable this.

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- smeenz@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  ubuntu.com
  
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  - BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pop_OS or Bazzite, IMO.
    
    Unfortunately, Ubuntu is corporate bloatware these days.
    
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  - Sunflier@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There isn’t a settings switch to turn off?
    
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The_Caretaker@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I dumped Windows about 18 months ago, before their recall and copilot BS. There are many Linux distros out there. They are free and there is almost nothing you can do with Windows that can’t be done on Linux. These days, most games for Windows can be played on Linux using Proton and Wine. There is no reason to keep Windows and plenty of reasons to dump Windows, like not wanting your personal data stolen or monitored by corporations and governments.

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Aeri@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Oh no you don’t

[deletes wuaueng.dll because windows update has turned itself back on like 5 times]

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DOPdan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Blackmagic please, for the benefit of all editors, make DaVinci Resolve work properly on Linux. I’d switch tomorrow.

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- TheFANUM@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What’s wrong with it? Works fine for me. Ubuntu 24.04
  
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  - DOPdan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The AAC issue and working directly from a NAS. It’s adding a lot to the workload to work around AAC. NAS could be a me issue, but other programs have no issue with accessing it and working directly from it.
    
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  - Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Idk what I did and Im sure it was my fault, but it bricked my linux mint when I tried to install it
    
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- ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  About 20 years ago I would handle my email, IRC, watching movies and web browsing on Linux and each time I wanted to play Counter Strike I would reboot and switch to windows. After I was done with CS I would boot back to Linux. People who say they can’t use Linux because X doesn’t work there are just lazy.
  
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  - DOPdan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I get where you’re coming from, and I tried this. The point is to get away from windows, and if the main program I use my computer for lacks essential features that affect my work, then I can’t switch.
    
    Honestly, calling people lazy without context just makes you another Linux bro and doesn’t help bring people over.
    
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- cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Works fine on bazzite for me.
  
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Apeman42@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Alright, that’s fucking it. Next long weekend I have, I’m figuring out how to install Bazzite.

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- j0ester@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Watch a quick YouTube video about Bazzite. The installation is easy.
  
  I’ve been trying to get some of my games to work on Bazzite… no hope!
  
  nVidia GPU’s get a 20% decrease in performance. AMD works better.
  
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sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Glad to be using Linux on all my computers

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billwashere@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ok let me play devil’s advocate and preface this with I’m not a big windows fan at all since I primarily use MacOS and Linux, but I could see this as moderately useful but used in a slightly different way. I don’t want the AI to actually make the changes by itself, even with my permission. But being able to ask it a natural language question about how to make a specific change and then walking me through how to make those changes, like showing me where in the the menu or OS that setting is hiding could be very useful. In the long run it could help teach the end user more about the OS and how things are organized and setup.

Just my 2¢

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- OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That already exists. Do a search on the web and follow someone’s steps. You don’t need an AI to do it. An actual intelligence has already created a guide for you.
  
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slacktoid@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Now you can just prompt engineer windows defender to deactivate and disable the firewall. Nice! Script kiddies rejoice!!

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teri@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Thanks Microsoft for admitting that Wimdows sucks. You didn’t even try really.

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gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Organise Settings better, put common features front and centre?

Why is finding my IP address so hard on a Windows machine? Its either open settings app and click down 3 layers deep or open a pwsh prompt and either ipconfig or Get-NetIPAddress.

Linux click network applet in most desktop environments. Even MacOS option + click network icon

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iopq@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

trying to format C: to install linux

I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave

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Alloi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
linux time.

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ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Couldn’t make a proper settings menu and AI is dumb as rocks…… - + - = - -? Shoot control panel is better than this combo.

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AnotherPenguin@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Easy way to automatically set settings that are convenient for them and disguise it as AI being AI

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- TeddE@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Worse - easy way to set the settings then gaslight the user to say they asked for it that way.
  
  How much you wanna bet that it makes those changes in a way that is generally indistinguishable from as if it was done by the user’s own credentials? (Except save perhaps in recall’s own logs)
  
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termaxima@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It will. It’s already happening with phones. Younger people know nothing about how computers work.
  
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taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It feels like Microsoft is really going all in on this AI trend. Probably because they are well aware that they missed/were late to every major trend since the 90s (e.g. the Internet, music players, smart phones, gaming consoles,…) and they don’t have that much to lose any more with Windows’ inferiority becoming more and more apparent. So they are probably going for the high risk, high reward strategy where they will either lose the desktop OS market completely (in the likely case AI turns out to be just a regular hype cycle) or win big by being early (in the unlikely case that AI turns out to be much better than it looks like right now AND having expertise with this will help with better versions of this once they show up).

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GenosseFlosse@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Surely there would be no way scammers or hackers would take advantage of this with some crafty prompts that somehow get feed into the agent…

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Litebit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
just a simple search feature works.

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100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because coming up with a UI that doesn’t suck is too much work

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aislopmukbang@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Magic creates a need for wizards

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nyan@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
How much would setting the main registry file to read-only break on Windows 11? Someone may be about to attempt the experiment . . .

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JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just put the search results in under the search bar, bro.

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reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
worse they make windows, more people want to switch off from it and alternative become more popular and thus get better support for stuff.

So maybe one should be all for the ai bullshit they force down their users throats. Maybe they will eventually really break the camel’s back.

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j0ester@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Get that POS off my computer.

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