Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to its New AI Assistant, Internal Documents Reveal
https://www.404media.co/microsoft-wants-to-make-people-addicted-to-scout-its-new-ai-assistant-internal-documents-reveal/Open linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com614
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Ah yes, Cortana and Copilot both suck, but surely third time's the charm. And when Scout is, inevitably, unpopular as well? We'll see what they call number four.
You forgot clippy, but everyone forgets about clippy unless it's in this exact context. Or it's Norfolk wizard game.
I can't believe I forgot Clippy...
Miss you, Tay
astoundingly racist, insulting reply
What about Microsoft Bob? Doesn't that count as their first attempt?
Clippy was basically an upgraded Bob kinda like how the old Jeep Cherokees are just upgraded Jeep Wagoneers.
Yeah "but not as annoying" lol. No idea what you mean about jeeps: I'm in the UK, and not a car enthusiast either.
The Cherokee and Wagoneer aren't distinguishable at first glance, the Cherokee was just an upgraded Wagoneer. That was my point Clippy was just an upgraded Bob with new coat of paint.
Is there any fundamental difference between Copilot and Scout, or is it just a straight up rebranding?
My impression is that scout is specifically going to be an agentic ai. Agentic ai platforms are supposedly a little more competent than chatbots, but still subject to the same llm chicanery and enormous energy usage.
It's hard to compare against copilot because MS has called a ton of distinct things copilot (see the diagram below).
I really hate that out of all careers, it's developers.
You forgot they called it Bing in the middle too
Cortana was actually really good on Windows Phone but they dumbed it down and added all sort of crap to it by the time it was integrated onto the desktop. They could've doubled down on whatads it good but nope.
@pycorax I second this, Windows Phone 8.1/10 was a godsend in a world of Android/iPhone duopoly (even if made by Microslop) and Cortana was smart enough to almost do everything you could ask of it (unlike the "couldn't understand what you said" or "calling Superfun New Toy From China" instead of "Super from Building A" that "AI" assistants of its time said).
@finalarbiter
"A little sign in here, a touch of wifi there..."
That's all I know of Cortana.
🔇
That’s Mambo No. 6
Not sure why that had to come on automatically at maximum volume every time, but the number of times I've finished backing up and re-imaging a computer at 3 AM, on to have her start hollering at the exact moment my head hits the pillow, is too damn many
microslop can fuck off.
I think you mean to say: "microslop can slop off"
Microfuck can slop off.
Fuckroslop can slop off.
Sloprofuck can fuck slop
This is what happens when bots train on each other's comments
Lmao
do you really wanna be admitting that addiction is your goal?
A $6 Million Jury Verdict Ruled Social Media Is Addictive.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anishasircar/2026/03/30/a-6-million-jury-verdict-ruled-social-media-is-addictive-now-what/
That kind of fine is a pittance.
true. but this one wasn't a class action, either.. just one plaintiff.
My non Linux savvy spouse is currently dual booting Linux Mint because Windows has become so frustrating to use.
Mint isn't perfect. We've run into a few bugs and shortcomings. But there's a big difference between dealing with genuine issues in an OS and using one that feels actively hostile and designed to exploit the user.
If both experiences can be frustrating, why choose the one that's frustrating by design (unless you absolutely have to) ?
I've used Linux for a decade now and windows is so much more buggy and shortcoming. Including new bugs.
Most of my music software doesn't function correctly on Linux :(
What software
FL studio along with a whole pile of third party VSTs, plus lots of weird audio routings and everything in 96kHz.
Bitwig is neat, but I'd have to buy like $1500 in third party VSTs to do what I do in FL.
Personally I've used FL with Bottles on Fedora with terra-wine-staging package and everything except webviews (FL cloud which I don't use anyway) works perfecly (and cpu usage is higher than on windows)
I really wish they'd had the balls and/or the legal power to keep calling it FruityLoops.
I mean it's massively outgrown the original looper app it used to be. It's top tier for DAW choices now.
You should consider a VM
How much worse is the latency going to get
IDK
You probably know this already, but Reaper is fully Linux compatible, it's not FL, so you'll have to adapt, but it is great
I'll have to adapt and buy $1,000 in third party VSTs to not have as good of a mixing/mastering solution as what's built into FL :(
I seriously doubt that, maybe run your setup past the forum and ask?
I will never EVER give an AI agency over any of my personal accounts.
You are not the target audience.
Oh we're the target, just not the customer.
Someone else has probably already done that for you.
Instead they made me addicted to Linux.
Yeah every time I get on my laptop it's a little more unrecognisable and unusable to me. Will be getting in Linux as soon as I get a chance.
What’s stopping you so far?
Time more than anything, im only on it about 2 hours once a month
A good place to start, if what you do for those two hours a month is just a browser and such, is a live USB with Linux mint (or something like that) and then there is no commitment until you are ready.
SSDs costing $300 for me. For some reason my current drives refuse to partition. I got an old laptop on it, but it barely works regardless of what OS is on it.
Older refurbished Thinkpads are a good and cheap way to go. They save a ton of compatibility headaches which only eat time. Linux is very economical on hardware resources. Or, just use an old pc. I work as a programmer and my main PC is 15 years old now.
$300? I found a bunch on Amazon just now for under $30.
Surely not for 1 TB though. I want to stay on Linux for the most part and save my stuff there.
Why not cheap SSD for OS and then 1-2 TB HDD for storage?
I only have 3 hard drive slots and they are for gaming.
I've strongly enjoyed cachyOS. Cue downvotes for this, but I installed ClaudeCode (any other cli would work fine too like opencode etc) and gave it a persistent memory as an OS helper of sorts when I get stuck.
Probably moronic to quit windows over AI integration and then set up Linux with the exact same vision just in a completely custom way.
I've just started messing around with cachy after using mint for a month and a bit, honestly kinda liking it with KDE over mint now.
look inside
enshittification
looks inside" its all AI, nothing but AI"
Gotta produce dopamine for that to happen. Not cortisol.
Yeah but one day they will hack it, like every form of advertising and addiction that was pushed on us since tobacco. This is just a new frontier that is unknown right now, like explaining the ridiculous idea of future social media addiction to a user in 2005.
This is microsoft. They broke their own fucking os.
They're not gonna hack your brain with copilot.
Clippy still whispers to us.
If they want people addicted to an AI, it's going to have to be a lot better than fucking Copilot.
As slop generators go, it's about the sloppiest.
Maybe their target audience are masochists?
Well, as a Windows user I can see the appeal
We're going to MAKE people ADDICTED by
making a REALLY Good Product!SOLVING annoying Problems!TREATING Customers respectfully!FORCING ourselves Onto people like Donald Trump on Little Girls!Did they try making it good?
That's the beauty of it (from their viewpoint), they don't have to make it good, just unavoidable.
yes, good at self-destructing.
Yeah, we know
Have they tried making it better, I feel like I'm more likely to become addicted to it if it was good.
Hahahaha suck it, Microslop. I look forward to your Chapter 11 filing.
Duh. I wouldn't have called it "addiction", but dependency was clearly the goal, otherwise they wouldn't take away classical search.
I thought that was obvious from the start.
This strategy worked so well for Bing
Duckduck go is thriving using Bing without the AI bullshit.
And Clippy
Create a captive audience through monopoly or near monopoly on a given market, then charge them more for a worse version of the product, reducing costs and maximizing profits, it's always been the goal with corporate capitalism, look at the whole Copilot and GitHub situation right now.
No shit, Sherlock.
And people would actually happily get addicted to an AI assistant which is reliable, safe, capable, kind, and fast.
They really should try making a great product. Then they don't need any tricks. People love great products.
And local and under your control. As a "second brain" that isn't sentient but intelligent to assist you AI has great potential. In a few years we'll probably have the models and new hardware to run good enough models locally on cheap enough hardware.
But by then they'll have drummed enough support for "muh copyright" to buy legislation for AI licensing and make all AI models have to pay a license fee to... "someone". Like that poor writer who had his work illegally read by an AI. So then no open source models can exist and they have the monopoly. Big win for the little guy lol.
The answer to "copyright" overreach is just piracy. I can play pirated games, watch pirated movies, listen to pirated music... Of course, I will be able to just use a pirated model locally. Or I can just use a Chinese or Russian one - they can speak English just fine.
I can't fault them for this business plan. It has worked for the opioid business professionals time and time again, for centuries!
Hold on let me put on my surprised look
BREAKING - Companies want customers to get addicted to their products!!!1
Legitimately most modern games or all of social media.
Oh they're making me addicted alright. I can't stop installing Linux on things. Its like a new vice for my devices
At least they're honest (internally) about their intentions. Obviously this is also the goal of the other big AI foundries; it either already is or it will be in the future.
Luckily Microsoft is famously bad at this, but Google and perhaps OpenAI will be more successful. We're still in the subsidized honeymoon phase, but this window is closing with the increasing pressure to return profit.
As a skeptic, I'm not worried about myself, but I'm scared for the people who will get addicted and then ruined by full prices or devastated when their mind drug is taken away again.
seems like google and OPENAI have the same problems, just as a slower decline. google trying to force gemini into all thier services. anthropoic isnt doing any better either.
Agreed, but I give Google a better chance with Google, Android & Gemini to actualy make an "addicting" chatbot.
At this rate I will have to do like Terry Davis and make my OWN minimalistic OS to escape this AI plague.
That shit should set off alarm bells of all regulators… but we elect people who don’t give a fuck so…
Explains why they want you to think it's also a person.
Knowing Microslop, I'm not too worried. They'll either scrap the idea before implementing it or make it so shitty people won't use it. Let them try for the shits n giggles.
Uhh yeah thats the long term profit concept of LLMs, force them onto people for free until they cant live without them, then jack up the price. Its been pretty obvious...
Only Scout believed in himself.
I understood that reference. ♥️
Today i tried to unbind the windows key from a computer because it was getting annoying. Tutorials pointed to the registry. I found nothing but ended up understanding why some keyboards directly have locks on that stupid key
Ha ha ha, no Microslop !
Never heard of Scout or seen the logo, but that's a big swirly poo, right? I'm not crazy, am I? This feels like being punked.
It's most definitely a poo.
The next step after all AI company logos looking like an anus.
They should make slop vapes.
Well, Microsoft, if you want that, put more cocaine in it.
Congratz you are the first person to successfully sell AI to me.
If it's agentic it's going to burn through tokens even faster, so what's their business model?
Scout will only be available for MS 365 customers.
Phew!
addictive? hahahahah. Poor Microsoft. Everything started going wrong for them when they got rid of Clippy.
... how? They can't just say it and expect it to happen. People have to want to use it. How, in the absolute shit sauce, could you possibly be addicted to an AI? What even is the goal?
This is kinda where big business have ended up. They no longer care for the product they're making, and instead directly aim at the end goal
That will really help all those lawsuits from people who got addicted to that thingy.
NOBODY WANTS TO WORK (on loving scout) ANYMORE!!!
When you ask an LLM to name itself, "Scout" is a very common name for it to come up with. That and "echo".
I used the LLM to make the LLM
Attention economy. Gotta fight it or gotta leave it for something better.
Out of touch execs still chasing metrics instead of focusing on quality. Their desperation betrays the awareness that an end is near.
Sadly, the strategy tends to work. Just like slop and clickbait by any sane world should not be rewarded, it rakes it in for the people who do it.
In the times we live , where sociopath billionares seem to reign, this is no surprising
its like trying to make people like fly agaric.
Very surprising
By taking away any other options?
Be like google, make search so shitty and monetized the only thing left is AI results.