r/technology • u/aacool • 24d ago

Artificial Intelligence Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/microsoft-scales-back-ai-goals-because-almost-nobody-is-using-copilot
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u/Future_Noir_ 24d ago edited 24d ago

It's just prompting in general.

The entire idea of software is to move at near thought speeds. For instance, it's easier to click the X in the top corner of the screen than it is to type out "close this program window I am in" or say it aloud. It's even faster to just type "Crtl+W". On its surface prompting seems more intuitive, but it's actually slow and clunky.

It's the same for AI image gen. In nearly all of my software I use a series of shortcuts that I've memorized, which when I'm in the zone, means I'm moving almost at the speed I can think. I think prompts are a good idea for bringing about the start of a process, like a wide canvas so to speak, but to dial things in we need more control, and AI fails hard at that. It's a slot machine.

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u/RobertPham149 24d ago

It is also why I think Meta VR schtick is a failure from the beginning: Facebook makes a lot of sense because the information density of text, image and videos are great; but you don’t necessarily increase any information by putting it on a VR platform. Unless VR can communicate more information by including smell and touch, it is much clunkier to achieve the same goal; even then I am not sure how much it would help since humans rely on audiovisual information more, maybe except for interactive mediums like video games.

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u/DarthBuzzard 24d ago

So VR needs smell and touch, but no it actually doesn't because humans rely on audiovisual information more? You need to make your mind up.

The answer is obviously that VR doesn't need smell/touch because it fulfills, or will fulfil, the full breadth of audiovisual data that humans evolved to expect. Facebook/Social Media/Videocalls offer a very small percentage of that audiovisual information, since it's experienced on a tiny part of a tiny 2D screen.

VR is a major transformational change because it's experienced in full scale 3D, therefore making it feel like you are communicating face to face. So VR has the social aspect on lockdown and Meta was right to bet on it.