Thursday, January 4th 2024
Microsoft Copilot Becomes a Dedicated Key on Windows-Powered PC Keyboards
Microsoft today announced the introduction of a new Copilot key devoted to its AI assistant on Windows PC keyboards. The key will provide instant access to Microsoft's conversational Copilot feature, offering a ChatGPT-style AI bot right from a button press. The Copilot key represents the first significant Windows keyboard change in nearly 30 years since the addition of the Windows key itself in the 90s. Microsoft sees it as similarly transformative - making AI an integrated part of devices. The company expects broad adoption from PC manufacturers starting this spring. The Copilot key will likely substitute keys like menu or Office on standard layouts. While currently just launching Copilot, Microsoft could also enable combo presses in the future.
The physical keyboard button helps make AI feel native rather than an add-on, as Microsoft aggressively pushes Copilot into Windows 11 and Edge. The company declared its aim to make 2024 the "year of the AI PC", with Copilot as the entry point. Microsoft envisions AI eventually becoming seamlessly woven into computing through system, silicon, and hardware advances. The Copilot key may appear minor, but it signals that profound change is on the horizon. However, users will only embrace the vision if Copilot proves consistently beneficial rather than gimmicky. Microsoft is betting that injecting AI deeper into PCs will provide usefulness, justifying the disruption. With major OS and hardware partners already committed to adopting the Copilot key, Microsoft's AI-first computer vision is materializing rapidly. The button press that invokes Copilot may soon feel as natural as hitting the Windows key or spacebar. As we await the reported launch of Windows 12, we can expect deeper integration with Copilot to appear.
Sources:
Windows (YouTube), via The Verge
The physical keyboard button helps make AI feel native rather than an add-on, as Microsoft aggressively pushes Copilot into Windows 11 and Edge. The company declared its aim to make 2024 the "year of the AI PC", with Copilot as the entry point. Microsoft envisions AI eventually becoming seamlessly woven into computing through system, silicon, and hardware advances. The Copilot key may appear minor, but it signals that profound change is on the horizon. However, users will only embrace the vision if Copilot proves consistently beneficial rather than gimmicky. Microsoft is betting that injecting AI deeper into PCs will provide usefulness, justifying the disruption. With major OS and hardware partners already committed to adopting the Copilot key, Microsoft's AI-first computer vision is materializing rapidly. The button press that invokes Copilot may soon feel as natural as hitting the Windows key or spacebar. As we await the reported launch of Windows 12, we can expect deeper integration with Copilot to appear.
52 Comments on Microsoft Copilot Becomes a Dedicated Key on Windows-Powered PC Keyboards
AI is good now because AI training is based on 99% human-generated and human-vetted content. Garbage content is vetted by popularity and falls off the bottom into irrelevance fast which is fine.
As more of the web becomes AI-generated content, found through AI-vetted search, upvoted by AIs, the percentage of junk, erroneous content used for AI training and machine-learning becomes potentially fatal to the effectiveness of AI evolution; we run the risk of seeing AI training level-off at best, or possibly regress like in Idiocracy as we approach a global internet scale of classic GIGO. Darwin's "survival of the fittest" applies to the evolution of content AIs as well as the evolution of species. If the criteria for survival change from "what people want" to "what an AI thinks is best" you get a feedback loop where anything could happen and 99% of the possibilities are garbage.
Essentially, until AIs get really really good at weeding out bogus junk and nonsense data, AI itself poses a long-term risk to the intelligence of AI.
Agreed bing search/ msnbc/ and a host of other liberal shit news sites "I like to forget" and you can see clearly what AI will become.
Crap servers straight to your desktop/... lol
As for evolution of intelligence, the highest IQ humans on the planet procreate at a very low rate because they're busy being employed in demanding (and well-paid) jobs. Meanwhile you have the poorest examples of society with no money, education, or resources who are left with little else to do with their time other than drink, smoke, and f*ck. It's a waste of their potential and a dead-end for the evolution of intelligent civilisation. I'm not saying it's bad life or that I begrudge them that, but they outnumber the geniuses who would previously have been the next evolutionary jump by 10,000:1
I don't want to sound like a Hitler here, but it's just basic math; look at the total number of descendants of Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, or Stephen Hawking and compare that to the number of descendants of a random person living in a rural Somalian fishing village from the same sort of time. Chances are that each Somalian had 8-10 children before they were 30, generation after generation. Einstein, Tesla and Hawking had just 6 children between the three of them.
And to stay on topic, the same applies to information, unfortunately. I'm sure the number of searches on scientific topics, like astronomy on TikTok far exceeds that of reputable sources, like SpaceTime, Cool Worlds or Dr Becky on Youtube (I'm not even going as far as scientific journals or university publications). The internet is a great tool to share valuable information, but it is even greater at spreading stupidity and ignorance, and AI is only oil for this dumpster fire of human "evolution".
AI may well speed things up but it's not going to speed up the march of progress, it's going to speed up the race to the bottom. I'd love to be wrong but I'm a seasoned realist and my cynicism is so often proved accurate. Let's just hope I am wrong this time because actually-useful, benevolent sci-fi level AI would be the best thing to happen to humanity in years. It could solve war, economics, and international legislation given enough time and acceptance and that sure sounds better to me than Wall-E, Idiocracy, or buying Bezos whatever his next Megabillionaire project is after the infamous Penisrocket to space.
And the purpose is simple: to care more about the planet and our fellow human beings. A society of smarter people is a better place to live in.
Last one I saw was just another speeding nut case :laugh:
Gotta love TPU.
Go watch Idiocracy. The effect will be the same but caused by laziness instead of genetics so there will be a lot of smart people around still. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's all really "philosophical and edgy". Go figure, but my bet is the average problem solving abilities will drop by a whole lot and that will accentuate a lot of social issues and create an even bigger gap between those that can take advantage of AI but still think creatively and those that'll just eat whetever the AI feeds them.