[fjsofkjdsfkos]

I think people are somewhat misunderstanding what's going on in this story. MSN's AI isn't generating stories wholesale like GPT-3 -- it's selecting other publications' stories from across the web for syndication, but doing it automatically after the company fired the team previously responsible for that curation process in 2020. Unfortunately, this new system is clearly not exercising good judgment about what articles or publications are credible, because of the ridiculous stuff that it's republishing from fake news sites about bigfoot, mermaids, monsters on Mars etc.

[heather45879]

I’d like to point out this extends to the actual Windows 11 OS because they relentlessly push National-Enquirer calibre news to users. Want to get something done? Hit Windows key and start searching for that app you want to use—only to be force-fed a bunch of celebrity gossip because it prefix-matches the search term and they want to sell Ad impressions.

I used to have high hopes for some of Microsoft’s innovations like Zune, Windows Phone, connect, Rosalyn—that glimmer of open-source-hope from the Evil Empire.

But it’s obvious now they are not really good at anything in the consumer space anymore: Hopping on the ad bandwagon because that’s what Google does; stealing the OS X taskbar placement for no good reason; turning the OS into the spyware folks used to dread at the turn of the millennium; now we need apps to remove Windows features just to use our computers.

[gryf]

I recently bought a Lenovo windows PC to run some software I needed that was windows only. It shipped with windows 11 Pro. Figured it wasn't going to be any worse than the win 10 Pro I have to eat on my corp laptop. So I fired it up and was disappointed and though all the crapware was vendor installed. So I did a clean install of windows 11 pro from microsoft. Actually it was WORSE than the vendor shipped version.

It is supposed to be a professional operating system but really you're being force fed dog shit because you have no choice.

I spent a couple of weeks migrating all my stuff away and will sell the bloody thing on ebay when I get around to it.

[jazzyjackson]

> Hit Windows key and start searching for that app you want to use—only to be force-fed a bunch of celebrity gossip

I, too, found that start menu has degraded in utility, mostly that it's not deterministic anymore so I can't just type windows key + prefix + enter to open the program, but I have to type more letters in and wait for the AI to stop re-ordering entries before I hit enter. Jeez. Found this solution, good way to spend 5 bucks:

https://www.startisback.com/

[bryanrasmussen]

>But it’s obvious now they are not really good at anything in the consumer space anymore: Hopping on the ad bandwagon because that’s what Google does

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products."

-Steve Jobs

Now of course everyone steals stuff, and Jobs did do his share of stealing, but I suppose people can agree he had a sense of taste.

I think with MS it's like when people write stories, a lot of what people write are ideas taken elsewhere littered with stuff that is original to them. But some people you get the idea that they are cookie-cutter writers, they think stories about alligators are big in the market right now (no idea why that is) so I am going to write a story about an alligator that attacks (spins wheel) people on a plane! And then because they know something about writing they identify parts where they need to put some kind of thing in and they sort of choose at random between many things other people have done.

And that's how MS works I think, although things are not totally random because they're a corporation so are decisions weighted to "can it make money?".

So they think "we need something here in this area that is dynamic, not always the same" what do we put in there? (spin the wheel) News Stories and Ads!

[victor9000]

Holy shit, I can't believe what I'm reading. Imagine buying a house and the seller comes in and starts nailing adverts to your wall. Here I am complaining about Ubuntu's use of snap and I don't even realize how good I have it.

[proactivesvcs]

Accidentally mousing over the unsolicited weather widget in the Task Bar, and having Alex Jones' face plastered over the screen, was the lowlight of my last week. It wasn't on even my computer and I was appalled by it.

[Aeolun]

Oddly enough the thing driving more advanced users to linux now isn’t that Linux is so good. It’s that MS and Windows are so bad.

[lstamour]

I think you can disable a lot of this using https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 - it’s amazing you can disable so much of this but it’s a shame that Microsoft’s defaults have so many ads and clutter. Not to mention, the first thing I do when installing a fresh copy of Windows 11 is move the start button back to the left where it belongs…

[dmix]

Microsoft is always finding new peaks of bad ideas. Its a sum of multiple smaller decisions along down a chain but clearly no one along the way decided to ask if it was a good idea before it got combined into the whole.

[throwaway426079]

I sometimes think about going from 10 to 11. Thanks for steering me straight.

[matheusmoreira]

Worst of all is seeing people defend these unacceptable practices and even Microsoft as a company. When will people understand the importance of having a computer system that doesn't answer to corporate interests? A system that is truly ours?

[mihaaly]

To me their biggest sin is senselessly ruining previously available and adequate functionality and usability. The aforementioned taskbar is a typical example. It not only force grouping icons (instances) of the same program but makes it mandatory, eliminating the choice of turning off grouping. This copuled with sh&t, truly sh&t level develpment when not the last used (frequent) instance gets activated on click but perhaps the last/first opened, "inventing" slow preview that not always work (during an active Teams chat it does not) needing a second click to get to where you want, but also removing title from this tiny undistinguishable preview for same layout instances making the choice even harder. I frequently need to work with several instances of the same software and my productivity is worse now just because of this maddening incompetently formed central thing of the taskbar. It was good, worked, but then they worked hard to ruin it. Ruined it and made it mandatory! How stupid is this?! It causes loss for my company: I work slower than could been, also making me mad, distracting, which also takes time to get back the focus. Less work can be achieved in the same amount of time. Costs money for the user, considerable amount of money. Need to look for (available, interestingly, the demand is that high, they make good money on this) auxiliary software that brings back essential functions (just to ruin those software too with a Windows update as underlying mechnism and tricks the auxiliary software relies on changes).

Software is supposed to ease and help the work we have to do, not making it harder! They seems to be careless and arrogant (forcing their choice without self critique), which is very dangerous combination.

All other usual things like incompletely reorganizing functionality/settings into yet another different form and location again and gain just to distract the known workflow, the continuous damaging refactoring pile on the top of these. But this taskbar thing, the very essential first door into the system, its destruction into inadequate pile of sh&t is a serious crime. Unluckily I am (yet) forced to use this in work, at home I free myself from Windows. Some friends, who can do, demanded to stay on the earlier verion than 11 from their organization until they finaly complete the taskbar to the usability level already achieved more than 10 years ago.

[lakomen]

Not to forget TCPA through the backdoor. Aka TPM 2.0 required. In the 2000s we demonstrated and fought against this. 20 years later people are so apathetic and M$ just decides that TPM 2.0 is a required hardware feature.

I only use Windows for playing games. Other irreplaceable software would be DAWs.

I don't see why I should have to buy a new computer, a "cheap" AMD-only system would cost 2.5k eur. An Intel/Nvidia system 5k, because of the ridiculous Nvidia GPU price and the high (600+ eur) motherboard price if you want ECC RAM.

What do I gain? A computer that is potentially controlled by external sources. Where someone else decides what I can and can't do with it.

Why hasn't there been an outrage when they said TPM 2.0 was required?

I will not "upgrade". I'm sure they'll find a way to force me. The games that I play don't require top notch hardware. Those "AAA" titles are honestly 100% completely uninteresting. 80 eur for NFS unbound where they removed the coop aspect of the story game vs the previous version? Are they on crack? A bunch of remakes and remasters? Pokémon, Mario aka console titles? I don't feel like they're even trying anymore. I'm probably too old and no longer part of the target audience.

MSN, I never read it anyway.

I will not install a consumer OS that requires a TPM chip.

[psyclobe]

When you push the windows button it has some kinda delay and it’s so shitty like u can’t start typing for what u want to find until it first pings some website for some metadata.

[firecall]

We'll eventually get the year of Linux on the Desktop, not because of Linux, but because macOS and Windows just got worse!

[jwie]

I expect this is because those kinds of stories acquire engagement. These bots don’t get bogged down in the minutiae of “truth”, or “credibility”. It’s all metrics. The content is a vehicle for these metrics.

Real or not, Bigfoot gets clicks.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

> Unfortunately, this new system is clearly not exercising good judgment about what articles or publications are credible

And that’s different from meatbag publishers how exactly?

[black_puppydog]

That somehow "we" decided to not hold software (or its creators) liable for bad behavior while for humans there's at least a semblance of responsibility.

"Oh that malfunctioning server that caused an outage to hospital infrastructure? Yeah, Software is hard, isn't it?"

Somehow shitty software is acceptable as an explanation for things, and as soon they are explained, they are understandable, and somehow we decided that makes them okay.