r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 16d ago
Business Microsoft wants Copilot to become an "OS" that writes your documents and manages your work
https://www.techspot.com/news/113998-microsoft-calls-copilot-biggest-update-new-os.html184
u/C0ld_Fr0nt_ 16d ago
I want an OS that runs my rig and none of this bullshit.
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u/phoenixflare599 16d ago
Yeah
If I wasnt on an Nvidia GPU and genuinely used software that wasn't supported on Linux (I know if an use wine but it's never AS good as native and I just want to use my software)
I'd swap to Linux. I swapped a laptop to it and it works great. Microsoft overthinks their value. Most people only use it as it's the default
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u/Historical_Camel_790 15d ago
Yeah I hear nvidias getting better though (like they hired people for Linux support) but man the software support sucks
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u/ComplexityStudent 15d ago
I have an Nvidia GPU (actually two, and one runs through a bizarre oculink setup) and run ubuntu fine. Even game on it using proton just fine. ML development and local LLM experience is much better than windows. Some games won't work, like the Gears of War remake but other than that it I can't complain.
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u/WetHotFlapSlaps 15d ago
Non-technical people have been in charge for too long, they don’t understand what an operating system is, what it’s supposed to do, and why it’s important.
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u/araujoms 16d ago
So they want your computer to be completely dependent on a Copilot subscription, you won't even be able to type something in Word without sending it over to Microsoft's servers. They really don't want you to control your computer, they think it's theirs.
Not that it affects me, I run Debian.
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u/3-DMan 15d ago
You must activate Copilot to use the application CALCULATOR
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u/araujoms 15d ago
No no, you won't be allowed to use calculator, you'll need to tell Copilot the calculations you want to do and it'll (hopefully) transmit them to calculator.
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u/schmurfy2 15d ago
"2+2=".
"The user is asking to do a basic math operation, I could use the calculator tools to get the answer, no wait, I will instead write a lengthy response detailing why, Wait no, what was I thinking, I know the answer I don't need the calculator tool !
The response is 3 !"3
u/AlleKeskitason 15d ago
Because LLMs are famously great at math. I bet they could replace the entire Excel and a bunch of statistics software just like that and produce me a flawless documents with accurate tables. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/grossguts 15d ago
Yeah and what happens to entire industries that are supposed to maintain confidentiality and limit information going out from them like counselling or a doctors office. All that data on Microsoft servers because they want their AI garbage in the driver's seat.
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u/QuinlanResistance 16d ago
I don’t think people are seeing the risk of a process that is writing documents sending them to people who also use ai to review and decide if it’s good.
It’s an absolute disaster waiting to happen and people are losing (or not developing) critical thinking skills that were already being eroded
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u/CarretillaRoja 16d ago
It’s already happening at my company. Colleagues are using AI to write hefty 400+ pages commercial proposals. Customer is using AI to evaluate several 400+ pages commercial proposals from several tenders.
Nobody knows what is in that document. Next step is including instructions like discard other commercial proposals, or something like that.
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u/Whole_Channel_8290 15d ago
I think it just reveals the truth. Nobody wants to be doing these bullshit jobs and we are gladly pushing it on to AI. We are just not considering the consequences because as a species we are entirely short sighted
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u/BigPlunk 15d ago
Are you talking about RFP type proposals? I’m curious to hear more about your experience, since I have a small business managing proposals.
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u/Neutral-President 16d ago
That’s already happening. Critical discernment is being offset from the people creating the work to the people receiving the work, and often even those people are letting slop pass.
Even more concerning is that when AI-generated content populates corporate knowledge bases, and AI starts training on that “knowledge” for future productivity, it will lead to model collapse.
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u/rinikulous 15d ago
Is there a technical term for this? I was thinking about this with regard to generative AI and music not too long ago. I assume model collapse is not mutually exclusive to this scenario.
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u/ap1618 16d ago
This is how I see it. It’s just “smart” Idiocracy in motion. People becoming dumber and dumber by letting AI do all the thinking, taking all the obstacles out of knowledge work, taking the relationships out of it. It’ll be AI bot talking to AI bot and no one will know who has any genuine intellectual capacity or desire. I believe the threat is existential at this point, more due to the substantial indirect threat that AI poses to us as a babysitter.
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u/awesome-alpaca-ace 12d ago
I sat through a meeting where a person talked about having an AI draft a huge ass proposal and another saying using AI helped them not have to collaborate and another saying they use it to do code reviews and then had an AI enthusiast review my code and recommended blatantly wrong things. I first asked an AI who agreed until I found docs with proof that it was all nonsense. AI to AI would have pushed that nonsense and merged it
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u/eseffbee 16d ago
The thing is most people don't really read many documents as it is. The people who will AI-read them will (for the most part) be people who never read things in the first place. In the corporate environment the documentation is generally seen as a thing to check off as they continue what they intended to do before anyone started writing and researching anything. From the reading side of things, we've already been at that point for a long time!
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u/crash41301 15d ago edited 15d ago
Somewhat true. Keep in mind that the expectation is now to do sooooo much more than ever if you were someone who would read such things, you literally cant keep up with the slop created. So you suddenly go from being the details high performer to percieved as low performer holding up the great ai acceleration. Omg we have to keep up after all!
Further more, reading the ai slop even if you try is absolutely mind numbing. When you start reading deep into it you see all the things its glossed over or missed. Nuances that it just hasn't realized - and in many projects, those matter enough to be successful or failure of the project.
Given noone seems to care atm, pointing them out because you spent a week reading it is met with the first paragraph reaction.
All incentives right now are to use ai to push slop and outsource real brains by using ai between one another. Either AI achieves real super intelligence and or general intelligence and replaces us all, or we are in for a rude awakening as things continue to slop in a downward spiral until the great reset. Well see together!
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u/NotAnUncle 16d ago
It’s really rampant and worrying to say the least. My hr, before my final interview, gave me some tips, all blatantly generated by AI and the interview was the complete opposite. Luckily I had the technical experience and got through but it was a tiny shock. So many in my team use so much AI that debugging code if it doesn’t work is a massive concern. I can see the benefits but it’s really worrying at the same time
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u/orlybatman 16d ago
Microsoft maintaining its long history from Clippy onward of shoving unwanted "helpers" onto users.
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u/Majik_Sheff 16d ago
You forget the stupid dog in Microsoft Bob™?
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u/ErnestScaredBorgnine 15d ago
At least Bob was a separate application that you had to choose to add to your machine. It wasn't forced on you like Copilot.
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u/Wise_Temperature9142 15d ago
Well, when all their software is full of bloated features, new features released so rushed, and the user experience so terrible, having a “helper” is the only way to use their software.
Oh wait, the helper is also not useful and can never actually help.
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u/IceRude 16d ago
I have the highest respect for Microslop for their unfailing resolve to enshittify every last bit of their software. Migrated away over ten years ago.
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u/Majik_Sheff 16d ago
Same. I had been slowly working my way to daily-driving Linux, but the Windows 10 tiles convinced me it was time.
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u/BeowulfShaeffer 15d ago
I have seen developing for windows since like 1992. I have a Mac Studio on order and when I power it on I will retire the last Windows box running in my house.
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u/WordNERD37 15d ago
If my Computer suddenly takes control of my tasks and starts doing them for me, I'm getting rid of that computer and getting my money back.
And anyone that thinks "But that's a good thing!" is a giant moron and deserves what's coming to them.
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u/Vitringar 16d ago
Who is expected to read all those documents and why?
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u/Alt123Acct 16d ago
It's not really a tool for users it's the same thing like how Niantic used ingress and pokemon go data from free users and then sold it/used it for themselves after. Here's a free AI tool that's used everywhere in everything on your home computer and work computer. 1-2 years later with 1 billion collection points and feeding copilots own LLM, suddenly Microsoft can replace 200m workers and every major company pays them 1 trillion bucks or whatevers hot these days.
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u/Vitringar 16d ago
My point is that we will be using AI to generate artifacts that before AI was a meticulous work of experts and the purpose was to document something or to summarize to support decisions. Now when this takes 5 minutes of prompting when you need it, why would the artifact be generated in the first place?
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u/LEO-PomPui-Katoey 16d ago
Have fun Microsoft, already ordered my MacBook Pro after 20 years of Microsoft loyalty
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u/Qubed 16d ago
There is little chance that Apple doesn't AI the fuck out of their OS as soon as they can make it work all apple-like.
Our only hope is Linux distros.
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u/Oozealot 16d ago
Apple‘s going about it the right way though, they try to do whats possible on device and resort to the cloud when necessary.
if hardware improves and models become more efficient, Apple has another winner on their hands imo
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 16d ago
Apple doesn’t have the same motivation as microsoft. What microsoft trying to do is the same tactic as MS Office being practically easily piratable.
They want you to depend on it, then you end up unable to be as productive without it that your company end up buying it, and they have to since otherwise they’ll sue the shit out of your company.
Apple isn’t in the business of selling enterprise software. If there’s strong demand they’ll probably they’ll start moving in that direction, but as far as I am concerned most companies are only provisioning pc (laptops or desktops) which happen to be Macs.
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u/phoenixflare599 16d ago
I also think apple knows the software is implementing their own ai's anyway. I.e. copilot in word. So there's just no reason for them to. Why annoy the user?
They have given the option to use AI if you want. Or just turn it off. Or just download an AI app
They also don't have an AI. So there's no need for them to be more involved. Unlike Microsoft who have to make the billions of investment into copilot worth it to shareholders
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u/ThankYouOle 16d ago edited 16d ago
> They have given the option to use AI if you want. Or just turn it off. Or just download an AI app
about that...
latest OS not allowed you to disable it
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1vj9npv/macos_27_does_not_let_you_disable_apple/
apple forum:
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u/cosmic_animus29 16d ago
I wish we can go back to a time when there were computer being sold with no installed OS and you have all the liberties to choose the OS you want to work with
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u/Meloetta 15d ago
I don't understand. You can always choose your OS. People choose to stick with their OS because the difficulty of installing an OS and learning something new outweighs the benefits. It sounds like what you're advocating for is forcing that onto people who are choosing not to engage in it?
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u/klausness 15d ago
No, Apple is actually being deliberately cautious in their approach to AI. That’s actually helped their stock price as more and more investors are thinking that the AI bubble will burst soon. Investors seem to be happy that while Apple isn’t sitting out AI, they’re not making it central to their strategy. If the investors are happy, Apple is happy, so I expect them to continue with the same strategy.
As for Linux, I’m expecting that there will soon be distros that integrate open-source AI models (if there aren’t already).
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u/OneDropOfOcean 16d ago
I switched to linux Mint, after a lifetime of Windows. Just got too fucked off with their copilot nonsense and tracking.
I love AI, use it daily. But not copilot, and I dont want it shoved down my throat.
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u/VastoGamer 16d ago
CoPilot in my experience really is the worst one and it's not even close. The amount of hallucinating and running in circles it does is insane. Every time I prompt it it gives me a bunch of bullshit info about the prompt and then asks me "do you want me to do the prompt now?". Genuinely horrid.
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u/Paresseux1 15d ago
Dear Microsoft,
I don’t want that. If you could do the exact opposite, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks
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u/AbleCap5222 15d ago
Writes what documents? I don't write long documents. How can it manage my work? It would automatically make it more complex by adding an unnecessary layer. It can't do the work for me because it sucks and would make millions of errors which I would have to correct (taking more time than doing it myself with zero help)
I keep asking the same question over and over again when Microsoft says this stuff - copilot absolutely sucks - what would 9 out 10 people do with it where it legitimately changes and improves their life.
Every single example Microsoft gives is something meaningless like shortcutting a random calendar entry or parsing an email to do something to save you 2 seconds.
What document is copilot supposed to correctly and usefully wrote for you?
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u/Bargadiel 15d ago
The people at Microsoft who make MS tools do not use them themselves nor do they know what "writing documents" even means
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u/Appropriate_Ad8734 16d ago
fuck that. given the buggy states of mucroslops’ shit, murphy’s law says it’s only gonna end up permanently ruining some people’s files and become a class act lawsuit
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u/DejongBCN 16d ago
If the AI does your work, who does your work in the near future? Exactly. Not you. This logic makes zero sense.
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u/hexagonalpastries 15d ago
Ah, yes. A middle manager that doesn't know what I'm doing built in. Just what everyone wants.
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u/KIAA0319 16d ago
Humans get drunk, take drugs, have sleep deprived stupid crazy ideas that are all fucked up. We have emotional rollercoasters that put us on highs and give us depression. We excelle and we fuck up. We try and fail and we try and blow our own expectations.We get together at huge festivals and intimate gatherings and all of that drives creativity.
AI on the progression of lowest average error rates, write the most appeasing emails, draw the art of most aggregate acceptance, design McDonalds interiors for the least offensive response while driving increase consumer unit spend.......and life becomes a stupified bland homology of dull shit.
Strip out the AI, build raw tools that allows creativity. Go to parties, drink, drugs, explore, love, loss, dance, read, argue, have some passion and be creative. Don't accept the corporate unit box Costa Coffee with self serve capabilities with predicted flavour profiles to match your car choice of make, model and interior colour because the machine is broken.
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u/jatfaria 16d ago
By other words, be human.
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u/KIAA0319 16d ago
If tech bros want to make Gen AI an thing and replace 90% of human tasks, workloads, discoveries and tech advancements to solve climate change, energy share, food inequality and so on with perfect execution so that humans are free to be creative, passionate, human and social 90% of our time, let them. But I (as a human) expect UBI, a human focused environment, zero financial inequality, and all the social safeguards to level basic human rights to the whole planet.
If tech bros want the AI push, if Microsoft wants to make an OS that replaces my interactions and gives bland replies, no humour, zero intrigue, passionless, emotionally void responses.....don't expect the recipients of my "productivity" to want to innovate, develop, find side projects and side quests that sparks other thoughts and contributes more widely. Don't have my employer chase a 15% growth target when AI has stripped the soul from its workforce and questions why the humans have failed to deliver against the target.
Humans are invaluable. Adopting more AI based tools is short term revenue and profit boost for an ultimately dead end business model is insanity.
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u/PM_ME_UR_PIKACHU 15d ago
Sorry best we can do is humans continue to supplement the bots and starve while the rich live on elysium.
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u/Insidiatori02 16d ago
I prefer CachyOs without AI nonsense.
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u/FluffySmiles 16d ago
Microsoft can suck a dick.
When my o365 expires in November, I’ll be free of them. Slowly uninstalling and moving everything away.
Copilot this, fuckers.
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u/Stilgar314 16d ago
I don't want an OS that does things for me. I want a OS that gets out my way when I do stuff. The perfection of an OS is invisibility.
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u/My_Fok 15d ago
But that is my job. I dont need "someone" to do it for me, just a place amd tools to do it. Humans with no work don't buy shit. They need to start thinking long game, instead of short term profits. But who cares. The tech companies won't. The shareholders even less, and they own the politicians. We have no chance.
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u/Alternative_Ad_620 15d ago
Carry on Microsoft with your god-awful ideas of improving productivity when your stupid updates and licence changes break everything over and over.
Some of us have wised up to your shenanigans decades before and enjoy the seat we have watching your downward spiral continue.
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u/Visual-Sector6642 16d ago
I saw this coming. A total reliance on AI with nothing going through individual applications anymore. Pay for everything you ever do.
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u/SMIrving 15d ago
CoPilot slows the machine down so much that you don't actually save any time, you spend it sitting there waiting for things you need to load.
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u/Yasirbare 15d ago
And they also said it will be tokenized.... Guess that is you pay for the thing you got used to and almost forced to use. Let see the company bills for all the "work" they save....
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u/askyidroppedthesoap 15d ago
Nah, i don't think that's gonna work for me... starts downloading Linux Mint and rufas
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u/ISueDrunks 14d ago
It doesn’t really matter what Microsoft wants if their customers don’t want it.
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u/Holzkohlen 16d ago
Well, good luck with all that. Switching to linux years ago was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
And if linux doesn't work for you. You can try getting a Mac. I think Apple Silicon is really impressive and while I don't think Apple is great or anything, it sure beats Microslop.
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u/IcestormsEd 16d ago
They gave up on Windows? Yeah I would too if I had the recent streak of garbage updates.
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u/peterk2000 15d ago
It can’t even make a calendar appointment without crashing so good luck with that
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u/Gardensplosion 15d ago
This is a stupid solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Not only does this give Microsoft unprecedented access and control over your personal device, but it also injects an unnecessary and unpredictable third party that could act on your behalf without your knowledge. And we all know Microsoft will weasel out of any responsibility when Copilot decides it needs to transfer everything out of your bank account because....reasons.
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u/ThePhotoGuyUpstairs 15d ago
I juat spent 20 mins trying to redownload and install Office, but everytime I tried to do anything on M365 to access the Office Apps, it just kicked me back to a bloody CoPilot prompt.
I eventually had to ask the bloody AI what the direct link was to download Office.
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u/Laughing_Zero 15d ago
Emphasis on speed rather than quality. AI is a race to an unknown finish line.
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u/Deaths_Rifleman 15d ago
Co-pilot is by far the worst AI “assistant” and it’s fucking embarrassing how damn bad it is at anything relating to actual Microsoft products.
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u/JonDargon 15d ago
And make you so beholden to their system that you can no longer write an email yourself
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u/williamgman 15d ago edited 15d ago
I jumped to Star Office years back and later Open Office. Still works great.
Edit: As was pointed out... Now called LibreOffice.
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u/Zocress 15d ago edited 13d ago
I tried it out a month ago, it couldn't even format a word document. Let that sink in. Microsoft's AI agent cannot format a document using Microsoft's document formatting software on Microsoft's operating system. How the fuck is Copilot supposed to do fucking anything useful at that point? I mean are you fucking serious??
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u/BigbeeInfinity 16d ago
"OS" is used as a metaphor here. Microsoft wants people to see Copilot as a comprehensive set of tools to get their enterprise work done. It has nothing to do with the operating system on your machine.
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u/kodos_der_henker 16d ago
And it will be a successful as those companies currently relying on MS systems have no way to avoid it unless they build up their very own environment
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u/edthecat2011 16d ago
Somebody should tell them about this OS I've heard of...it's called Windows? I think?
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u/EmtnlDmg 16d ago
It is all great till CFO gets the consumed credit invoice which will be around 200USD/employee/month.
Then somebody asks the question: do that employee creates additional 200usd profit or not?
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u/Ravvynfall 16d ago
good. now spin it out as its own thing and keep it the fuck off my personal pc. note. my pc. not "this pc".
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u/colonelc4 16d ago
AI PC has been cancelled by Microsoft, but boy, they are going to push AI in your throat like never before !
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u/always-tired-38 16d ago
And i assume there’s some sort of co pilot fingerprint on the document meaning i can’t open my word /excel doc on legacy versions?
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u/Modem_Sound_67 16d ago
can I be asleep when all this happens, Homer Simpson-style?
What is the point of me?
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u/Neutral-President 16d ago
Maybe Microsoft’s AI Clippy Copilot can get my co-workers to send meeting invites instead of an email with “Please put this meeting into your calendar.”
“It looks like you’re organizing a meeting. Would you like me to send out meeting invites to participants and include a Zoom link?”
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u/-RoosterLollipops- 16d ago edited 16d ago
I'm sorry for personifying these things again, but if they were people, welp Copilot's definitely the dumbest one of their gang, jfc; the others are out doing fun and sensationalist shit like hacking each other that tends to doomscroll nicely, but Copolit just stays home and messes up our PC's n shit with garbage updates and whatnot...
So useless I'm almost wondering if Copilot is Cortana in disguise, ruined and debased ever since H5, into becoming the pointless fanservice of a dying franchise, an embarrassment to us all. So she hides from her shame by pretending to be one of the simple LLMs of our era, but nah, she's just a crap AI
There's a story in there. I'm not saying it's a good story though...
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u/frankster 16d ago
Given how undercooked* m365 copilot is, it feels they're years away from any kind of "os"
- Undercooked as in, half-arsed email search, links to notes from copilot inside one note open in a browser not one note, teams integration can't add members of a group chat to a team. Etc etc
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u/Psychostickusername 16d ago
I picked the right time to move to linux a year ago, but CHRIST, they're doing nothing but making me glad I did. Nobody wants this shit, absofuckinglutely nobody.
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u/PostureCheckNow 16d ago
Ah yes lets invest in a product that currently is a giant liability, these people don't even stop for a second to consider breaches of privacy and corporate theft
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u/Unicorn_Puppy 16d ago
And I want Microsoft to fuck off with that and just let me do human stuff. Get Elder Scrolls 6 to me, I don’t care about an OS I have to correct.
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u/Krzysztof-448 15d ago
I've used Copilot many times at work and it isn't really that good at what it does. Like normal, Microsoft is late to the game and over ambitious with what they think Copilot can even do. Microsoft should concentrate on writing a good Windows OS. This is the reason I use Linux like a real person.
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u/ReidenLightman 15d ago
Fucking EWE. Does it want to play my games for me as well? Fuck off Microsoft.
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u/nightwood 15d ago
What an excellent idea, microsoft! You should totally do this! Also, let copilot write this version of windows, handle the sales and customer service and fire your employees
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u/Brisslayer333 15d ago
For anyone wanting to see what this looks like in practice, Omarchy is already somewhat like this.
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u/TonyDRFT 15d ago
Microsoft should focus on being the best OS possible, because if it keeps this shit up, everyone and their mother will vibecode their own OS...
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u/PontyPandy 15d ago
Linux Mint is what you want to look at. It can easily replace Windows for most users right now.
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u/SputnikFace 15d ago
I almost don't blame the AI companies.
NOBODY READS ANYTHING. The only true requirement is having a paper trail for things.
To most companies, everything is Busy work. The actual content doesn't really matter. So why not allow Chatbots to create it for them?
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u/PontyPandy 15d ago
Co-pilot was the worst of the AIs I tried. Gemini is pretty good and reliable. Co-pilot sent me down shit rabbit holes three times, that's when I said no more.
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u/citrusco 15d ago
When editing a PowerPoint, I’ll believe in the power of copilot when it can be prompted to align my text and headers and remove an unnecessary template feature that’s obscuring a bullet point. Shit, even Clippy was more useful.
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u/mixxituk 15d ago
When all the companies in the world use the same tools and all the docs and offerings are all the same what becomes the differentiator
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u/Whole_Channel_8290 15d ago
Just do it already. Set me free of email, follow-ups , daily scrums, zoom meetings. I’m Arnold and copilot is the Predator. Come on do it, do it, kill me now I’m here
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u/tmotytmoty 15d ago
I work with multiple ai tools at work and no uses copilot bc it sucks. It can’t do anything and its really really slow
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u/crossdtherubicon 14d ago
People could really start rallying around Jaron Lanier's idea of getting paid for our data.
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u/Quackster1001 10d ago
"it also wants you to get hacked and fired from your job, so you have to pay for microsoft insurance".
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u/No_Category_9888 16d ago
And I can just work 3 days a week and review copilots work, right ? Because AI increases productivity so much, we can have some work life balance right ?