this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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"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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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 15 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] joenforcer@midwest.social 3 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

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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[–] wwb4itcgas@lemm.ee 120 points 1 day ago (23 children)

If you have to supply your users with AI support to figure out how to configure your OS, you might be doing something wrong.

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

linux should add an ai agent that does nothing except return ascii cats

That already exists

cat /dev/random
[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 day ago

Oh shit, you just reminded me that I never installed the Cat Walk widget on my current KDE install!

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

How about you make settings easier to find instead? That is, if it wasn't deliberate to dictate the users a preset.

[–] coolmojo@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It is not hard. You just have to change it in the Settings, sorry in the Control Panel or was it in Registry. /s

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[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 44 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm already used to windows settings randomly changing in particular for sound input outputs... So now there will be an AI changing them on top of that?

RNG control panel?

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[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 18 points 1 day ago

MS never finished porting Control Panel, now they think AI will help?

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Looks like this isn't ripe for abuse in any way.... ~~sarcasm~~

You just know MS is going to find a way to abuse this 'feature' to change people's settings behind their backs in any way they see fit.

This reeks of the type of malware that used to take complete control of your PC and change settings maliciously, and even delete important files or straight-up nuke your OS install in the worst-case scenario, but made 'legitimate' somehow. Yes, MS is really stooping that low to make one of the worst types of malware an actual OS feature.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I am pretty sure Microsoft doesn't need an AI agent to access your settings.

However, that AI agent might be a new attack vector for someone else.

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[–] iopq@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago

trying to format C: to install linux

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 42 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can’t wait to see all the exciting ways this fucks up people’s computers.

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[–] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or just make settings that aren't total dumb bullshit for which you need Ai to find anything.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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¢

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours 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.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago

Now you can just prompt engineer windows defender to deactivate and disable the firewall. Nice! Script kiddies rejoice!!

[–] rimu@piefed.social 20 points 1 day ago

I remember when MS made the perfect control panel in Win 2k and XP then spent the next 20 years making it worse and worse just because.

And here we are.

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