Microsoft is starting to integrate AI shortcuts, or what it calls AI actions, into the File Explorer in Windows 11. These shortcuts let you right-click on a file and quickly get to Windows AI features like blurring the background of a photo, erasing objects, or even summarizing content from Office files.
Four image actions are currently being tested in the latest Dev Channel builds of Windows 11, including Bing visual search to find similar images on the web, the blur background and erase objects features found in the Photos app, and the remove background option in Paint.
If it ran with local model(s), as in, ran on your PC entirely, I would have no problem with this.
It does appear to be local.
Sadly everything is connected to microsofts cloud services which I just don’t trust for an infinite number of reasons.
As long as the feature could be disabled as well
That too
this is going to cause so much data loss…
Not if you get a Microsoft 365 family with copilot plan for only $129.99 a year ! /s
I just get happier with each passing month that I don’t use windows anymore. The freedom of having my hardware and data no longer serving the corporate interests of the operating system vendor is great.
Four image actions are currently being tested in the latest Dev Channel builds of Windows 11, including Bing visual search to find similar images on the web, the blur background and erase objects features found in the Photos app, and the remove background option in Paint.
Only one of those things could be called AI.
Today I had to disable Copilot in Notepad.
Notepad.
The shitty word editor that you use to jot down your shitty writing before copypasting it into somewhere else to put actual work into it.
You’re telling me I can’t change the shitty line-spacing in shitty Notepad, but I can get a top-of-the-line corporate LLM to help me with my purposely shitty writing?
#keepnotepadshitty
I love notepad for deleting all formatting so word doesn’t take a massive shit when I paste things into it from other documents.
Does pasting without formatting have the same effect or is it still slightly off?
Same effect
PowerToys -> Ctr alt v
And a ton of other utils
Wipe Windows, Install Linux ;D That was my last straw as well.
Hell yeah. I run LMDE6 on my gaming PC. Runs fucking fantastic, even plays games faster via Proton than it did on Windows natively.
I am generally opposed to the integration of generative AI in consumer hardware, since it doesn’t have much practical utility at this point.
However, the features described in this article mostly have to do with extracting information from images. This is actually quite useful! For example, macOS allows users to select text and automatically mask objects from images. It’s a feature I use heavily and wish other operating systems had good support for.
However, the features described in this article mostly have to do with extracting information from images.
You said “mostly” and also, I don’t want microsoft looking at any of my images without them asking first. They already have deleted images from my computer if I save them in their designated “my pictures” folder. I don’t trust them.
I don’t see it mention it doing anything by itself? This is just an overblown aditional context menu action from inbuilt Windows apps, nothing special. Same thing as “Open Folder in VS Code”.
No they’re not because I’m on Linux
possible issues:
- blurred a part of the photo that shouldn’t be blurred, data loss
- erased the wrong object, data loss
- deleted large chunks of content in my docs/ppts/spreadsheets I wanted to keep, data loss
This is a really bad idea
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letting AI do whatever it wants to your files is not very good…
I’m so glad I’ve been moving away from windows recently
Same. I finally dumped Windows 10 on my gaming PC for LMDE6 a few months ago, and I already see massive benefits. It runs games faster, I can do anything I want with it, including multiple simultaneous user sessions, and can even admin the thing entirely from my phone via Cockpit or plain ol’ SSH (VPN/local network only, of course).
This is a whole new level of data mining, which is why they want it. Now they will scan everything that’s open.
they want to justify the cost of using AI, which they admit to not generating any profit, they are trying to sell off as much data as they can, so they can offsett the cost of power/water intensive AI.
Sounds great but AI so Lemmings will hate it.
So lemmings = people who want to maintain full control of their PC rather than relinquishing various tasks to a fancy auto-complete?
What control are these features relinquishing?
And you’d be correct. I don’t need or want any of that crap on my personal machine.
You don’t want to be able to easily edit photos on your personal machine?
You don’t want to be able to do a reverse image search right from explorer?
And you’re against people having the option to do these things……why?
You don’t want to be able to easily edit photos on your personal machine?
That’s called MS Paint. It already exists.
You don’t want to be able to do a reverse image search right from explorer?
No! Why would I want more shit calling back to the mothership about my files on my personal computer?
And you’re against people having the option to do these things……why?
When did I ever say that?
MS Paint doesn’t give you advanced features like background blurring/removal and object removal.
Why would I want more shit calling back to the mothership
They’re not “calling back to the mothership”. Why do you think they are?
When did I ever say that?
By being against them adding these features.
MS Paint doesn’t give you advanced features like background blurring/removal and object removal.
Nor should it. It’s fucking MS PAINT, not Photoshop. If you want advanced features, use something more advanced. Adding shit to MS Paint when it’s gone virtually unchanged for decades without complaint is unnecessary feature creep.
They’re not “calling back to the mothership”. Why do you think they are?
LMAO
By being against them adding these features.
You understand the terms “opt-in” and “opt-out”, yes?
MS paint isn’t getting these features - the photos app is.
Also that’s a horrible reason to never improve programs lol.
LMAO
Oh you’ve got these features and can show us the logs of background blur calling back to MS?! Awesome, how’d you get them early? Uncle work for Microsoft?
You didn’t say you want them to be opt-in or opt-out, you said you don’t want them on your computer.
Pretty sure it’s opt in? So… don’t use it?
I’m pretty sure it is or at least will be at some point
“Users throw windows in trash and install linux” - new headline
I still have it for a few games that dont work well under proton. But after I go all AMD im gone lol
Yep I only have windows for pubg and vr…I really hope vr on linux gets some more advances cuz I do enjoy it
If Linux was more compatible with a lot of programs/games there would be absolutely no reason to install windows ever again
I’m not missing anything, even games run fine with Wine/Proton. Also, a lot of the Linux games a really fun! (I personally enjoy Xonotic and SuperTuxKart. I also like to play custom roms with mgba) The only thing I’m missing is pretty much ONE really niche network program thing which didn’t have a Linux version. Everything else either has a Linux version, is a Windows game that can be run with Wine, or has some Linux alternative (think inkscape, kdenlive, okular)
What networking program? If it’s not some proprietary protocol I bet there is a Linux tool that does it.
A VPN. I couldn’t get V2rayA (the vpn uses v2ray, there’s a win + mac app for that specific vpn but not linux) to work. I might have to have another crack at it soon…
I don’t understand why a VPN needs special software to work honestly but I guess that’s valid. It’s likely it would “work” in wine but idk if it will be able to do what it needs to.
not special software, but it has an app that lets you log in on win and mac. On Linux, I was able to log in and see all the servers but when I set it as proxy it didn’t work :( I might try again later
Yeah but having to use third party software to run games is annoying and it’s probably buggy and you more than likely get errors
I mainly play WoW and I doubt that’ll run effectively.
Just looking up online how to install it already looks tedious.
I mean all I’m using is Steam, adding them as “non-steam games”. I’ve also found some game art to make it look nice. For me at least, I haven’t run into any issues besides at one point one of my games was missing a few shaders causing it to render improperly (I forgot to move the files from my Windows installation, but after I did everything worked!)
It wasn’t difficult to install at all! I just installed steam (for fedora you need to make sure you enable third-party repos when furst installing the OS) and that’s basically it. I’ve also installed Wine manually (not very hard, just “sudo dnf install wine” on fedora) to run a few non-game programs like some compiled .exe programs I made a few years ago by running “wine [program name]”. It’s crazy how simple it all is now!
Just get lutris and I expect it works just fine. Worked fine for overwatch, so i expect WoW too.
But you’re right, launchers are usually the biggest issue when its comes to compatibility. Especially that completely useless piece of shit Rockstar peddles.
I rather run everything in third party apps than deal with Windows again,. But each his own of course.
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I mainly play WoW and I doubt that’ll run effectively.
Well, you either switch and learn to use compatible software or you can keep complaining about enshittification for the rest of your life.
I installed Zorin a couple of months ago and I’ve had no issue playing any game that I’ve wanted or any game already in my Steam library. I was warned that “there might be problems using Linux” but it literally works better than when I had W11
Wine or Proton will make just bout anything you run on windows run.
Linux is compatible with a lot more than it used to be, and for those stubborn programs, there are usually FOSS alternatives, or emulation/compatibility layers. Hell, my machine runs games faster through Proton on Linux in 1440p than it did natively on Windows in 1080p.
might be difficult for the layperson to agree to that,
I finally switched to full-time Linux last year and I haven’t missed anything. The only stuff that doesn’t work (and doesn’t have a good alternative) are games with invasive anti-cheat that I wanted to boycott anyway.
Most is the anti cheat games are not working on Windows either. They only give you some dubious error message.
I’ll just go by protondb.com and most what I want to play is either gold or platinum rated, or even native.
I only have 106 games in my library, and out of those 66 are native, 43 are gold or platinum and 1 is unrated. I’ve bought nearly all of then before even switching from Windows to Linux about nine months ago.
Using arch btw.
Proton is so good that often games run better with Proton than native too. Usually because the developer puts little effort in the linux native version. Proton is such a godsend.
I’ve had this experience with both
GungeonTrine and Slay The Spire.
man I’m so glad I’ll never use windows again.
Article doesn’t state this but I assume this is done via Copilot, so anything you use it on goes direct to Microsoft cloud, right?
I don’t think so. It says it’s part of file explorer, so that would be part of the overall system, right?
I 100% expect so. It’s much easier and cheaper to do it this way and also gives them data to train copilot further
I might be wrong, though
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Just because the UI exists in file explorer doesn’t mean the data processing is happening locally. It’s likely happening on MS’s cloud. Maybe some actions happening locally on new machines with NPU chips
I want to believe you, but I’ve been burned before.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m saying that this work is almost for sure being sent to Microsoft’s servers, which is certainly a bad thing. That is burning anyone who uses it
I thought you meant they wouldn’t be processing your files locally. You’re saying they’re taking all of your local files and sending them to the cloud though?
Likely in pretty much every case they are taking files that you perform an AI function on and uploading them to their cloud.
I said the few exceptions might be very low effort work that could run on the new NPU chips coming with some PCs. But I doubt they would even do that because it’s passing up the opportunity to use consumer data to train their models.
So yes, if you use an AI feature, MS is taking your file(s) and training it’s models on it
Seeing as it windows its safe to assume literally everything goes to the cloud even if its not stated.
Some Copilot functions are done locally on some computers with the appropriate NPU chips. But it’s Microsoft, so they’ll be sending data home either way.
Yes, but them not calling it out in the article makes me thing this is not the case here. If it would be done locally, it would not be as bad. But I somehow doubt it would be.
