Microsoft 365 Copilot announced

Topic

New Reply

MICROSOFT NEWS By Will Fastie Another shoe has dropped in Microsoft’s quest to build generative AI into just about everything. On March 16, Microsoft
[See the full post at: Microsoft 365 Copilot announced]

4 users thanked author for this post.

fisher75, Norio, lmacri, abbodi86

Reply | Quote

Replies

A quick look back at Microsoft’s original Copilot: Clippy

..While the online demos of Copilot look impressive, it did bring up memories of a previous attempt to offer help to Office users: Office Assistant. You may know it better by its most famous avatar: The animated paperclip with beady eyes, Clippy…

It first debuted in Microsoft Office 97, over 25 years ago, with the name Clippit, but it was quickly known by users as Clippy. Many more Office Assistants avatars were also created but none of them reached the level of fame that Clippy received…

In any case, Clippy quickly became a major annoyance for most Office users. The “assistant” would constantly pop up, with phrases like “It looks like you are writing a letter. Would you like help with that?” Many users didn’t, or couldn’t, shut down these appearances by Clippy. In 2002, with the launch of Office XP, Clippy and all his Office Assistant friends were banished due to poor user feedback….

* I think the the same fate awaits all AI “chatGPTs”.

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

* I think the same fate awaits all AI “chatGPTs”.

It’s way too early to tell. Clippy wasn’t generative but Copilot is. And some of the videos from the announcement are quite persuasive.

It’s not obvious how to disable the “Discover” button on the Edge toolbar (it’s a modified Bing logo icon). It’s buried deep in settings, in Sidebar as opposed to Toolbar (sneaky). I suspect it might be hard to shut it down in 365 as well.

Reply | Quote

Will Fastie wrote:

It’s not obvious how to disable the “Discover” button on the Edge toolbar (it’s a modified Bing logo icon). It’s buried deep in settings, in Sidebar as opposed to Toolbar (sneaky).

The Discover button is not on the toolbar, but acts like other sidebar app buttons.

Reply | Quote

My first thought is: does that mean the Copilot is also capturing everything I do in MS 365? The blog says “the user is in control…” but does that mean I can avoid it being installed in the first place? “control” becomes a mythical desire…

1 user thanked author for this post.

Will Fastie

Reply | Quote

LarryK wrote:

does that mean I can avoid it being installed in the first place?

Good question, and I don’t know. We look forward to Peter Deegan’s research for us on this entire matter.

Reply | Quote

b wrote:

The Discover button is not on the toolbar, but acts like other sidebar app buttons.

Definitely on the toolbar. This was clipped from a screen capture in which the sidebar was not visible.

Reply | Quote

Will Fastie wrote:

Definitely on the toolbar.

The toolbar ends at … Settings and more. Right-click on anything up to that gets “Customize toolbar” but the Discover icon does not.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Will Fastie

Reply | Quote

Tell that to the average User.
It “looks” like it’s on the toolbar and the average User will not know to “split hairs” er…bars.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Will Fastie

Reply | Quote

Will Fastie wrote:

It’s not obvious how to disable the “Discover” button on the Edge toolbar

It is easy to remove ‘Discover b’ from the toolbar in Edge settings.

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

It is easy to remove ‘Discover b’ from the toolbar in Edge settings.

Yes, but not under Settings | Appearance | Customize toolbar. Instead, it’s in Settings | Sidebar | App and notification settings | Discover.

Besides, Microsoft wrote this about the icon:

As the new Bing icon in the Toolbar, Edge Copilot helps users compose better emails, search the web faster, learn new skills, all done more conveniently.

(Emphasis added.)

The Edge toolbar reaches from edge to edge across the window and from a UI perspective is a single element. As far as I’m concerned, anything in that space must be considered part of the toolbar.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Alex5723, PKCano, b

Reply | Quote

Microsofts video on copilot at https://news.microsoft.com/reinventing-productivity/

It’s really ironic (and frightening, and sickening) how Satya Nadella has the cheek to say how we all have a collective obligation to use AI responsibly, and yet Microsoft is the most greedy, abusive corporation out there, forcing everyone onto a grossly inflated subscription model that does nothing for mankind, destroys years of work we have done by changing the user interface, and generally abusing its users.

Jared Spataro says “we spend too much time consumed by the drudgery of work, on tasks that zap our time, creativity and energy. At times the very tools that should make us productive, seem to get in the way!”
Yet Microsoft itself is responsible for so much of that drudgery, forcing us to deal with the ‘bloatware” and unnecessary changes that Microsoft has introduced to all its software, from Windows, through Office 365, to its most complex programs.

He claims Microsoft 365 Copilot is built upon Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, compliance and privacy. But if Microsoft really had a “comprehensive approach to security, compliance and privacy”, why would there be so many flaws in its software which need constant patching; why would there be so many areas where Microsoft records what you are doing and sends the data back to Redmond? And compliance with what?

I cannot think of a more useless bit of wasted coding effort than Microsoft 365 Copilot! Who would genuinely be happy with that sort of c**p?

RobB

1 user thanked author for this post.

Mothy

Reply | Quote

Robb wrote:

Who would genuinely be happy with that sort of c**p?

That’s what we’re going to find out.

Besides, it’s not just Microsoft. All of big tech, and dozens or hundreds of other companies, are jumping in. Whatever you might think of Microsoft, it could hardly be out there alone without this stuff.

Robb wrote:

Satya Nadella has the cheek to say how we all have a collective obligation to use AI responsibly

You make a good point. However, it’s important to have him on the record saying that.

Reply | Quote