Pressing the copilot button to instantly bring up a text box where you can interact with an LLM is amazing UI/UX for productivity. LLMs are by far the best way to retrieve information(that doesnt need to be correct).
If this had been released with Agentic features that allow it to search the web, use toolscripts like fetching time/date and stuff from the OS, use recall, properly integrate with the microsoft app suite. It would be game changing.
We already have proof that this is a popular feature for users since its been integrated in every mobile phone for the past 10 years.
LLM is just a slow way to do things that have better ways to do them.
Or to have an expensive autocorrect do your thinking.
Upvoted. It’s utterly useless.
So you agree that pressing a button to bring up a box that you can query with natural language is a good feature you just think the LLM part is slower and computationally inefficient? I could agree with that if there was something better proposed. I just see an LLM being a good tech for this because of how dynamic it is and with the addition of tools to do specific tasks in a determinism fashion its a powerful tool for the users.
Upvoted for absolutely horrendous take.
Keshee out in the wild? Upvote!
retrieve information(that doesnt need to be correct).
Perhaps I’m just one of “the olds” who doesn’t get modern technology, and this is why I’m having a real difficult time imagining why I, or anyone, would ever spend time looking something up when the factual correctness is optional to begin with.
Yeah, if I don’t care about correctness, i can just make it up myself
Unless you think people always come away from google with the right answer I dont see the 1:1.
If you NEED the right answer you should go to a trusted source same as if you’re using google. If you are looking for an answer then usually blogspam articles, reddit, or AI will all be good enough to return something satisfying. AI is just a faster way of searching a question on google and clicking thte top result.
a faster way of searching a question on google and clicking thte top result.
No, it isn’t. The “I’m feeling lucky” button is.
No its not. Firstly 99% of people have no idea what that button is.
Secondly opening a web browser and going to google typing in your question then pressing ‘im feeling lucky’ then searching through the webpage is way slower than hitting the copilot button typing your question and getting a quick direct answer.
Then write yourself a desktop plugin, an icon, an input box, anything, to take you to the first Google search result. What the fuck does this have to do with LLM? How is this justified to use gallons of water, gigawatt of electricity, and PBs of stolen training data?
Ok so your main complaint is that its to energy intensive? Would you concede that its an OS assistant is a good feature if the query computation cost was lowered? Because I’d argue it already is and the cost of an LLM query isnt unreasonable. The large power costs come from model training and per query cost is negligible.
Also I wont make an argument on the copyright for training data because i dont respect copyright.
upvoting because this is a good unpopular opinion.
unfortunately, microsoft is about ten years too early to the party, like they always are. what they offer isnt very reliable either, in my opinion
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No it’s not
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No it won’t. Not even becsuse it’s shit, but becsuse it’s Microsoft’s and they sure as fuck aren’t gonna put it in any OS other than Windows.
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It has not been added to every phone and isn’t even 10 fucking years old. It’s barely existed for 2.
Are you just using “Copilot,” a specific brand of generative AI assistant program like the way a parent would call all video games “Nintendo?”
3. It has not been added to every phone and isn’t
even 10 fucking years old. It’s barely existed for 2.
It might be that they are conflating GenAI with services such as Google Assistant ot Siri. Though I personally find that Google Assistant is/was more useful that their GenAI implementation (Gemini).
Both siri and siri with an LLM is the same product its just an expanded scope due to the addition of new tech. I see no reason why i cant group them.
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Obviously I am not talking about copilot being built in to other OSs. I am talking about an OS assistant that uses LLMs to handle natural language queries being built into OSs.
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Yes it has, IOS and Android have had siri, bixby and google assistant for over a decade.
In copilots current form its chatgpt with some basic functionality added on. Its a baby compared to siri, bixby and google assistant. I think its a good addtition to windows and we will see it grow to be a more powerful version of google assistant and we will see this develop and be implemented on the other major desktop OSs.
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I’m not here to upvote, downvote, or argue, but I do not use this feature, desktop, mobile or otherwise, I don’t even use the web pages like an ancient Internet user, LLMs only provide productivity when you already know what you’re doing and you’re basically guiding a toddler through a laser field, using the chat features for anything besides coming up with clever names you might name your next dog is basically never going to increase your productivity.
Sometimes I wonder if people come here and derive ludicrous drivel for the explicit purpose of posting here.
This is one of those times.
Its a slow day at work, I wont lie.
I am so confused as to how the majority of people view this community.
This post right now shows -12 vote count. So does that mean this is a popular opinion…? Or do the majority of people not know how this works?
Because users can smell a shill post a mile away
It could be traffic from outside this community, so they havent read the rules in the sidebar. Maybe people just hate copilot so much its a subconscious reaction lol.
I disagree with your overall opinion for various reasons (relying on AI erodes researching and critical thinking skills; Copilot is dangerously unreliable in the majority of use cases); it is invasive to the point that it’s creating a user backlash; there’s are many serious social/emotional issues that are surfacing because of AI over-use; etc etc).
But I respect that you have shared a genuinely unpopular opinion here (in the right community). And you put your arguments forward in a well-worded and coherent way. So kudos.
ETA: I don’t think it’s appropriate to personally insult OP because of this post, as a small number of people here are doing. C’mon people, look at the community we are in and don’t resort to such insults. This is a great topic for legit discussion.
I agree that LLMs can erodes critical thinking skills and can be unreliable but I think they ARE fit for purpose for majority of searches and queries people have day to day and people are figuring out what is and isnt a question for an LLM. Like im not going to ask an LLM how to configure some piece of software I’ll go to the docs and read it because i need this to be configured correctly. I wouldnt ask an LLM if I can eat this weird mushroom because i might die if its wrong.
But I would ask an LLM what tech I can use if I want to get X result and then look through the summaries of each suggestion. I would ask for a report or document template to be generated because im proof reading the document anyway. I would ask for help automating a task. I would ask for help writing random low effort slop posts that I have to do for office stuff, like marketing emails, event announcements etc.
My reasoning for this post is that even though I dont like copilot currently I can see that at its core its a good feature and with the right polish it can be a great improvement for users. A big gripe i have is that marketers have way overpromised what assistants like copilot can do. When i speak with other people I can see they have already been leaning heavily on natural language queries for over a decade now and having this built into the OS would be a huge quality of life improvement and would improve what the tool can do. People already been outsourcing their thinking to google many years ago so I cant pearl clutch over doing the same with chatgpt and we can put our heads in the sand(like most people in this thread) and pretend people arent using these LLMs for information but the reality is that they are and we need to accept it and be involved in building the software that people want.
I’m a linux user and I think it would be very useful to be able to click one button and say “Set a calander event for the 25th my dads birthday and set a reminder a week earlier” and have it set that. It works on mobile just fine.
The fuck it is. People will make uninstallers or blockers.
Thats fine, I dont expect 100% of people to like anything. My argument is a general one.
I don’t know why people are downvoting this. It really is an unpopular opinion.
every phone
Not every one. I have GrapheneOS on the phone. And Linux on the computer. Like some nerds here. And there hasn’t been any assistant popping up on mine…
Also don’t think whether that’s going to be built into any major operating system is much of an opinion. That’s more a fact 😉But yeah, whether that’s useful… I’ve read all kinds of opinions on that. I think we need more factual data on user efficiency. I’m positive we’ll get some more studies on that.
Not every one. I have GrapheneOS on the phone.
ah yes i forgot to list the 100 edge cases that cover 0.0001% of the phone market but you know what I mean.
I think we will get something similar to copilot on linux, obviously there will be distros that dont ship it but people are working on projects and once the open source models improve and the UI/UX workflows get polished up I believe major distro will ship them. The linux foundation owns the MCP protocol which is the goto protocol for AI’s to interact with things.
I also doubt they provide a huge increase in productivity. I’d say between 0% and 10% productivty increase and its more of a quality of life and small time saver than a powerhouse productivty tool like its marketing suggests.
Phones, sure. I -personally- think it’s massively problematic how the phone operating system ecosystem is basically a monopoly of two companies. And I almost can’t do my paperwork or get a doctor’s appointment or train ticket anymore without accepting to forward my personal information to a list of 40 “partner” companies, a good chunk of them abroad in the USA. And then it’s massively complicated and I need 3 authenticator apps, and they do device verification and SafetyNet to make sure my(?) phone isn’t controlled by me, but Google.
So yes, in reality it’s not how I envision it to be. Phones just do what Google wants them to do and that certainly also includes Gemini AI. All of this is almost impossible to avoid, and it’s getting harder each day. It certainly is that way.
(Same with edge-cases in general. I had to contact modern customer support lately, and that just got way worse than it already was before AI chatbots. We just don’t do edge-cases any more. Everyone needs to get in line, have the same life and same common issues or they’re screwed.)
With Linux, I doubt it. Traditionally it’s a lot about choice. Caters to its user group who (on the desktop) include a good amount of privacy advocates, people with older computers, nerds… I think we’d need some paradigm shift first. Before any of the larger distributions change their defaults. I like to believe we’re relatively safe here. And my biggest issue isn’t AI in itself, but how large, annoying companies shove it down our throats. And that’s really not how Linux works.
I’ve been pondering productivity as well. I once did some AI assisted coding. Took notes and did a similar task after that the old-school way. In that case AI had wasted time, I was faster without. But it’s been a while and AI tools have improved in the last months. So I probably should repeat that experiment. And do it a couple times to get some solid numbers. I find it hard to apply it the exact right way, though. It’d underperform (on me) if I don’t get the prompt right, feed it the right amount of context if there’s a pre-existing project… It’s better at some tasks and not so good at other ones… So with the current state of technology it’s not that straightforward to delegate stuff to AI, and it’d just increase productivity. At least that’s been my previous experience. But we get a plethora of contradicting and weird reports on AI’s performance when used for coding.
I agree that phone operating systems are way to locked down and hostile to user privacy. I wasnt holding them up as an example of what we should strive to replicate. I was just pointing out that I find the assistant feature on phones to be useful with how it can handle natural language query and preform different actions and I’ve heard many people say the same thing. With linux yeah we have enough choice where there will always be non AI distros but I think once the tools become good enough they will get adopted by ubuntu, fedora, mint etc. A tool like https://github.com/qwersyk/Newelle could one day be shipped with ubuntu and I think it would be good. Giving users a local first private AI that can help them do things would be a huge usability improvement in my opinion. Just the calendar event booking alone would sell me.
I also agree with you on AI productivity, sometimes its better and sometimes its worse and sometimes its catastrophically wrong. I’m mainly trying to make the argument that Copilot(and other AI assistant implementations) are a good feature/workflow for the users. I accept that their current state is unpolished and copilot is marketed to do way more than it can do. But I think its core concept is solid and the features are being built out and they will get to a point where its commonplace and in every major desktop. I’ve been following people who are using AI on their linux systems directly linked up to the terminal and it looks useful to be able to say “book and event on x day doing x” or “send John and email saying X” or “what was that file I downloaded yesterday”. These kind of actions currently work with Claude + tools but unreliably at the moment and the safety aspect is yet to be solved.
I’m sure someone will read this and say “but you could just send that email with a single command” but a normal user isnt going to send an email by typing in like thunderbird -s -t test@google.com -bcc mydad@google.com -m “hello” for sending an email but an AI can easily turn a natural language request into this command. So from the normal user perspective they go from having to open up a gui and enter out all the fields to pressing a button and typing out what they want or even saying what they want into a mic.
Seems we’re basically on the same page.
I’m fairly sure Linux tends to lean more towards tech-savy people, who in turn tend to be the more pragmatic ones and think in a more problem-oriented way. So I’m positive it’s gonna be more about productivity in that community. They’ll adopt something based on usefulness.
It’s just the companies who don’t operate like that. Their AI tools are more pushed in a top-down way because of the investment bubble all the companies take part in. It’s not necessarily about productivity or anything. That’s some desired side-effect, but I think all of it is more about what their investors want to hear.
As if now, I’m not sure, maybe it’s still net-negative for us, the Free Software community. Our servers get hammered by AI crawlers, our projects swamped with fake AI bugreports. While the AI tools aren’t good enough to be of proper help in more complex projects. And we don’t have an infinite amount of money to just push for it anyway and care about profitability in 10 years… So I think we’re bound to do it the other way round. And AI has to actually prove itself, and that takes some more time.
For example, I hope some day I’ll get some modern AI tools in my image editor. I mean I’m of the pragmatic type myself, I’m gonna use it if it contributes to my life and doesn’t come with a devastating cost on society and the environment and other individuals. Same with chatbots. I don’t think we can tell yet. I think we first need to make it way more “intelligent” and come up with new regulations, ways to deal with the negative aspects… Currently it’s a bit of a train wreck with the flood of fabricated things that displace human conversation on the internet, Americans like Peter Thiel who makes big bucks inventing Skynet and push for doomsday. And we can tell it’s not a positive balance yet, because almost all AI companies aren’t profitable. But maybe we can tackle that. And it’s the promise. We’ll see. At least on the technical side we seem to be making progress each new day.
Yes. And these AI tools with terminal access seem fun to explore. I think they’re called coding agents. And we get quite mixed reports. Some people use it and it (roughly) gets their job done. For other people it just casually deletes their harddrive or does other weird things. We really want something like this, though. So we as humans transition from doing the coding to being software architects and the AI does the actual coding. I think it’s very difficult to have things in-between, copy-paste all the time and argue with AI, then nobody has a look at the code, so we miss the security issues and only learn about it after the company has been hacked… I think Instead we want some end to end solution that just reads the specs and does everything including some testing, integration and security and factors all of it in. And for more than gimmicks, it needs to do the job to some acceptable level. But that’s to a large degree a technical problem, and we might be able to figure it out in the future.
I’m also looking forward to AI being able to do proper useful stuff, like clean up on my messy harddrive, do my personal bookkeeping and paperwork… I don’t think we’re there yet. At least I haven’t heard people do that (successfully). But that’d be a nice job to delegate.
just sell your microslop shares, this isn’t happening
since its been integrated in every mobile phone for the past 10 years.
We just found out the person who makes job announcements asking for more years of experience with a technology than the technology’s years in existence
Do you not think assistances have been in phones for 10 years or are you saying they are different specifically because they didnt use LLMs back then?
It was just a silly joke about llms being much more recent :D. The way you phrased it made it sound like you were talking just about llms, and not software assistants in a broader sense
LLMs are by far the best way to retrieve information(that doesnt need to be correct)
We already have proof that this is a popular feature for users since its been integrated in every mobile phone for the past 10 years.
you’ve obviously retrieved your thinking in the best possible way, by far.
Do you disagree that phones have had assistants built in for the past decade? Siri was released in 2011 old man.
It also has been disabled since 2011.
on your device?
Yep, disabled it the very moment it was released and made sure to disable it on any device after that. Which were only two. And I they were both laptops … I never had an iPhone.
Ok thats cool but how many people do you think disable it? If you think its a bad feature thats fine but im trying to make a general point about assistants being considered a good feature and a single example does nothing for me.
And that shit has been listening in and leaking personal information ever since its conception. It’s not a fucking positive.
We can acknowledge that assistants like siri are good even though they have had data privacy issues. Youtube has privacy issues but I still use it and consider it a good service. Lemmy has privacy issues and I still use it and consider it a good service.
Overall Siri is a good feature is good and a majority of the users use it.
Bwahahahah gosh that is the most corporate apologetic comment I’ve seen in a long while.
Thanks for the laugh.
And no Siri is not a good feature and literally every person I know that is still using iPhones disabled that shit besides the one Apple simp.
Also learn the difference between what people willingly share and what gets gathered without consent.
Do you think majority of people disable their phone assistant or care about data privacy? You’ve raised extreme minority positions and expect that to be a convincing counter argument to a generalized statement. I’m sorry but thats just out of touch and even though i hold the same minority positions I still acknowledge the realities of what average users want from technology.
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Ok you can stay mad under your little rock. But dont cry about it when the world leaves you behind.
