Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reaction to Microsoft’s Windows AI Push

  • Many see Windows’ AI integration as the latest step in a long decline: from “OS I control” to ad‑, surveillance‑, and upsell‑platform.
  • Repeated comparisons to the Xbox One DRM reveal, Diablo Immortal’s “Do you guys not have phones?” moment, and other tone‑deaf launches.
  • Several expect this “agentic OS” era to be remembered like Vista/Windows 8: a failed direction that alienates users.

Trust, Privacy, and Consent

  • Core objection is not “AI is boring” but “AI is being forced on me and slurping my data.”
  • Strong concern that features like Recall and Copilot imply indiscriminate access to private documents, photos, and corporate data, with weak auditability or control.
  • Enterprise admins complain Microsoft repeatedly auto‑enables new AI features (e.g., Copilot in M365/SharePoint, Teams, Notepad) without consent, creating security, compliance, and support headaches.
  • Users are angry at constant prompts (“Try Copilot”, “AI summary”) with no simple “never ask again,” reading this as deliberate coercion.

Perceived Value and Limits of Current AI

  • Split views:
    • Some use LLMs daily for coding, debugging, documentation, and summarization and find them genuinely useful.
    • Others find them unreliable “bullshit generators” that hallucinate facts, waste time, and require constant verification, especially for technical or factual queries.
  • Image/video generation is widely seen as a low‑value novelty that produces “slop,” worsening information quality and drowning out human work.
  • Many emphasize: AI is fine as an optional tool; it is not wanted as a first‑class interface for everyday OS tasks.

Business Incentives vs. User Needs

  • Commenters attribute the AI push to:
    • Investors betting AI will replace intellectual work and unlock new revenue.
    • Executives and middle managers chasing AI KPIs to justify huge compute spend.
  • Users feel ignored: long‑standing Windows bugs, regressions, and UX issues (taskbar, Explorer performance, reliability) remain while AI is plastered everywhere.

Desire for Choice and Alternatives

  • Strong demand for a lean, AI‑free Windows (or LTSC‑like) consumer edition with no ads or forced online tie‑ins.
  • Many report already fleeing to Linux, macOS, or SteamOS; others predict Windows becoming mostly an enterprise/cloud subscription service.
  • Underneath the AI debate is a broader claim: Microsoft now treats users as monetizable data points, not customers to serve.