Microslop Autopilot

Microsoft has been on a generational run of bad product decisions across the board but specifically with their premier "artificial intelligence" service product, Microsoft Copilot.

Copilot is a confusing product to begin with. In fact, I'm not sure what specifically constitutes "Copilot" versus just being the branding that Microsoft slapped on anything remotely LLM-adjacent. But Copilot is the built-in AI offering from Microsoft as well as the name of one of the bigger "help write my code" AI plugins for software developers.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, users aren't super thrilled with absorbing the fallout of an endless cavalcade of head-ass product managers vying for VP recognition by injecting AI features into everything.

Regarding the term "AI"

For the purposes of simplicity, when I say "AI" I am referring generally to the wave of modern generative/LLM products advertised as "Artificial Intelligence," which is not actual AI but its easier to just say "AI" at this point.

If You Recall

One of the earliest flashpoints in the you'll-use-AI-and-you'll-like-it timeline was when Microsoft announced "Recall," an AI-powered feature which records what you do on your computer and stores it so that you can look stuff up later.

Like a browser history, but for your entire computer and fed into an AI.

When it was first announced, the response was rightfully, "the fuck?" with security researchers absolutely dogwalking Microsoft who in turn 180'd a few weeks after the announcement, pulling back on their release schedule for it.

I'll note that Recall is not something that is secretly installed on every Windows PC out there now. It's a feature available only on their "Copilot + PC" computers—another use of the Copilot branding that genuinely confounds me.

Still, it was Microsoft saying, "hey, Windows people! We think you should let us screenshot your activity and store it in a file on your computer. What could go wrong??"

While Recall has seen more updates and tweaks over the past couple of years, it is still fundamentally a product that people did not ask for and don't want on their device.

Well, In That Case

Sure thing; makes sense. I get it—you don't want us taking screenshots of your personal stuff so that our AI systems can help you go look back up that video you forgot to save last time you… well…

Anyway, sure sure cool. In that case, we'll leave it be, and instead focus on shoehorning Copilot "features" into every conceivable inch of Windows.

—My sleep paralysis demon, who happens to be a Microsoft product manager

Microsoft decided that if we don't want Recall, we must want them to cram AI functionality into every other app. Makes sense!

So they got to work.

You can find AI features in Word, Powerpoint, Notepad, and even File Explorer, where you can use BING VISUAL SEARCH to "find similar images and products."

My favorite computing task is to download images of products to my computer, then use my Windows Copilot™ File Explorer Integrations to search for similar products! They just get me.

Hell, the Notepad features they launched even added a major security exploit which they had to roll back. And that's not even considering what I'd say is the wildest move so far.

Your Code is My Billboard

As I said earlier, "Copilot" is also the name of a widely used AI programming assistant.

Quick crash course: in software development, developers work on a feature in what is called a "branch" of the app which lets you modify the code, update it, test it and all that good stuff without affecting the actual software that is published.

When you are ready to launch your work, you "merge" the branch into the main code. Merging usually means you open a sort of ticket called a "merge request" (or "pull request"), where you explain what your code does and give other developers a chance to review it. Merge requests include a written description of what you've built.

Here's where Copilot comes in: some developers were using Copilot and asked it to make an edit to the merge request on behalf of the developer. Copilot did so, dutifully. Then the developer went back to read the merge request and found that Copilot had appended an advertisement to their merge request.

Specifically, Copilot added a line suggesting for readers of the merge request to download Raycast, a productivity app (which I genuinely love and use constantly tbh).

You can see for yourself that there are more than ten thousand merge requests publicly visible on Github (a popular code hosting platform) where Copilot has plopped an advertisement right in with the actual work.

Microsoft, who owns Github, has since reversed course on that particular "feature" which they referred to as "tips."

It Must Be Working!

Surely, between the engineering time spent on pushing out all these features and the billions upon billions of dollars of investment into AI infrastructure, Microsoft must be seeing huge returns and adoption? That's why they're going so hard into this, right?

Right?

So according to Recon Analytics, even with Copilot baked right into Microsoft 365, Copilot usage is contracting while Google’s Gemini is expanding. A generous estimate from TechRadar puts usage of Copilot by Windows users at a whopping 2.5%. All the while, leadership at Microsoft published a blog about their "commitment to Windows quality" in response to presumably an ocean of IT professionals demanding an answer to the age old question, "what the fuck are you doing, Microsoft?"

The wildest part is that this isn't even the first time Microsoft leadership has made a public statement about returning their focus to quality in response to feedback just this year. And yet, ads injected into people's merge requests. Cool cool, y'all.

As a parting note, if Microsoft wants to hire me as Senior Executive Vice President of Removing Copilot Integrations and Ending All Military Contracts, I'm down. I'd do it for a measly $1 per second.

(I did some quick math and thats like $7.5 million a year which is actually less outlandish than I thought it'd be. At least as far as Microsoft goes.)