Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, has shared his opinion after recent pushback from users online that are becoming frustrated with Copilot and AI on Windows. In a post on X, Suleyman says he’s mind blown by the fact that people are unimpressed with the ability to talk fluently with an AI computer.
His post comes after Windows president Pavan Davuluri was recently met with major backlash from users online for posting about Windows evolving into an agentic OS. His post was so negatively received that he was forced to turn off replies, though Davuluri did later respond to reassure customers that the company was aware of the feedback.
Arguments about the validity of it being impressive aside, I think he’s mistaking impressive technological achievements with things people want in their operating system.
The public’s expectations differ from those of professionals. Microsoft seems to be ignoring this fact. By now, there should be two distinct product lines. This is already the case with server architecture. However, it appears that Microsoft’s strategy is to alienate its customers and make them hate every update.
Honestly I stopped using the OS because of the ads, it was such a ballsy move to keep spamming me with “use one drive” “try edge” “look at alllll theses aaaappppsssz that yoouuuu can pay for” or even “activate windows” my OS is my home not your billboard ffs
When a sewer pipe blows up with a fountain of sewage, people are impressed for a few minutes.
When it just leaks and stinks, people are not impressed even for a few minutes.
This is a surprisingly apt analogy
I don’t think I know anyone who has been excited for a single microsoft product in the last ~15 years. It’s never “wow, that’s cool”, it’s “I wonder how they fucked it up this time”.
If you’re “mindblown” about this then you shouldn’t be the CEO of any division of one of the most profitable businesses on the planet.
His mind has to have been blown all along to think this way and be so disconnected.
“Talking fluently”. You get completely meaningless answers. Big walls of text without content.
AI is a hindrance, not a helper.
But that’s the point, these people’s worldview (despite them being older) is the same that I was reading about around year 2010:
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black box ideology (like Turing test - doesn’t matter it’s imitation if it looks real for us),
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trust into big data (we don’t know what we’ll do, but if we build big-big computers like zigguraths, and big-big datasets like Azimov’s Empire, we’ll have that cool sci-fi future we were promised),
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transhumanism (the idea that new technology is not analogous to wheeled carts and knives, going in parallel to human development, but instead something approaching a common point of singularity),
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mystery (that’s quite old, as one might notice, but in their case it’s the “layers” of existence and knowledge of how it all works, in practice meaning that big tech top people can play with things you won’t ever learn about),
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conflict as source of evolution (that’s why all around the world doing various gruesome shit starts to correlate with being a western ally, 50 years ago there was some sort of parity ; that’s also why some things really seem like subject to the criterion of building autonomous combat drones and data banks for those ; on Russian state TV they love to talk about yet another wonder weapon being designed, I heartily hope something of that really exists, because what Palantir and company are doing will certainly be real, and for balancing that Putin will do).
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“Don’t you have phones” moment
The issue that I have with Microsoft’s AI, is that I simply don’t trust Microsoft to not serve the interests of the 1% against me.
If I am to use an AI, it is with the expectation of privacy and following my intentions.
Didn’t manufacture enough consent. That’s on you
He’s not wrong but read the bloody room. If a tool for image/video generation was all that Microsoft gave on Windows, we’d be fine.
And once again, Ed Zitron is proven right about the Business Idiots running everything. Jesus fuck these MBAbros are so fucking stupid.
Ed has some great insights, but his walls of text is really a lot to take in at once.
Maybe you get get AI to summarize them ?
Hah!
It is interesting to see his reaction to reality. He finds out that people think he’s peddling bullshit, and instead of asking why they think that, he dismisses them as irrational… That’s one way to run a company, but only if your company has a monopoly and customers can’t run away even if they want to.
His comparison to snake on his Nokia is actually good because in its current state AI is like a little gimmick for many users. Sure there are use cases but it can’t reliably perform any truly critical tasks because it makes terrible mistakes.
Imagine Nokia shoving snake in customers faces as it is being done with AI. Every phone marketed as OPTIMIZED FOR SNAKE. A big snake button on the phone as a shortcut to open it. Snake integrated everywhere. Trying to send a text? Would you like to play a round of snake first?
That’s what AI currently feels like.
have you heard of THE WORM i have installed THE WORM on everything you own THE WORM is great it can do POETRY and ART for you and also EMAILS are you happy about THE WORM ? THE WORM is monitoring your reaction to THE WORM at all times
Hence why Valve is releasing the Steam Machine to push SteamOS. It will illuminate a pathway to run away on. At least for gamers.
I’m still bit confused about steamOS, I thought it was supposed to be a full on operating system for gaming centric PCs but it seems to need Plasma in order to do any traditional computer things.
Which aspect of that confuses you? That it uses a Desktop Environment to do desktop things, or that they are using KDE Plasma instead of something else (say, gnome)?
So steamOS is in fact not an operating system it’s just a program that runs on plasma. Or is steamOS actually an operating system, but just quite a limited one, and you dual boot into plasma.
KDE Plasma is just the desktop environment. It’s not an OS. SteamOS is a full OS, built off of Arch Linux. It has both a Gaming mode, which looks a lot like Steam Big Picture does these days, and a desktop mode that uses Plasma as the graphical shell/interface. It doesn’t matter OS-wise which one you “boot” into, as both are SteamOS.
SteamOS is a linux distro based on Arch Linux, similar to any other. It’s a amalgamation of different pieces of software, including a traditional desktop environment (plasma). But it does not boot into the desktop mode by default, instead it boots into their own graphical environment (gamemode) by default, running their steam client.
That’s because their main focus is gaming machines, and that’s why they want gamers to be greeted with a consolized, 10-foot UI.
I think you’re confused because you think of steamOS being the UI (i.e. “Desktop Environment”) that welcomes you when you boot into it, instead steamOS is the entire package, including a “traditional” desktop environment (which is KDE Plasma), as well as their own (gamemode), etc.
A desktop environment is not a prerequisite for an operating system.
Basically SteamOS is just a tweaked version of Arch Linux that boots Steam Big Picture Mode by default and launches games with Proton. It’s not a full blown OS by itself.
It is a full blown Linux OS. You can switch out of the gaming specific mode/UI to a Linux desktop environment using KDE. There you can install your own software and use it like a normal computer.
The only limiting factor is that the root file system is read only by default (can be disabled). If you want to install system level packages, you can work around this by using something like distrobox.
Yes I know I own a Deck. I’m just saying that the Steam layer is not, since the comment I was replying to was asking why you’d still need Plasma and not use the Steam UI to use it as a desktop
Many people can run away, but it requires effort.
why not just admit you overspent on datacenters, which you cant afford and trying to recoup some of the losses from your other products.
Sounds just like the dumb fuck who killed Xbox.
