What you have heard about is a feature called "Recall", which is something that has not actually rolled out and will only be coming to PCs with specific neural processing units. Other windows users will not be affected (although of course that will change over time as old devices are replaced with new).

Is it possible? Yes, of course it's possible. You could say that about pretty much any operating system - including Linux distros - if the functionality turns out to be popular.

However, to be 100% clear, this is functionality that the user can disable (either entirely, or on an app-by-app basis). And data is never transacted to the cloud or with Microsoft. What's on the device does not leave the device. It's also really not in Microsoft's own interest at all to try taking on that responsibility... How would they know if you paid for an app/game/song or not, even if they wanted to?

But back to your question: yes, of course it is possible. This type of technology has already been prototyped in different ways (e.g. Apple have done work about identifying CSAM on the iPhone, although not implemented).

Yes, Linux gives you a lot more control. If you were to make the switch, I would list a hundred other reasons that are far more compelling than this storm in a teacup.

That said, there's absolutely no reason a Linux distro couldn't also bring the same functionality, if there is consumer appetite for it.

If you are looking to truly make it "impossible", you need to air-gap your machine and not connect to the internet anymore.

In defence of the author, there is absolutely nothing about the term "AI" that just means "LLM" in an informed context (which is what Wired portends to be). And then the words "machine learning" are literally front and centre in the subtitle.

I don't see how anyone could misunderstand this unless it was a deliberate misreading... Or else just not attempting to read it at all...

(That said, yes, I do hate the fact that product managers now love to talk about how every single feature is "AI" regardless of what it actually is/does)

It stems from an old proverb: "there is naught so queer as folk", essentially meaning "people are strange". The meaning of "queer" has shifted and narrowed over time to refer to sexuality, but kept its ties to this idiom, resulting in the TV show "queer as folk" and the generic phrase "queer folk".

There is nothing especially pretentious or mythical about the word. It may just be your own assumptions/interpretations of it. Far more people have an issue with the word "queer" than they do "folk". If you don't like it, don't use it, but you should also aim to shake the stigma from it, as it's not what 99.9% of people mean when they use it.

It would depend exactly how big/substantial this 'gathering' is, but I could imagine that "Grove", "Stand" or "Thicket" might be appropriate.

They aren't exclusive to your definition, but could be applicable.

Careful, they didn't claim to be getting 28% engagement from users... Just that this ad format performs 28% better than other ad types. We have no idea (from this article, at least) what the comparison actually means in real world usage.

In case you're not aware, the latest version of Excel absolutely DOES have that setting (mentioned elsewhere here in the comments). While it's wild that it took so long, it's now a solvable problem and everyone should know about it (and upgrade)!

I think a key difference is that Apple had a very clear target demographic for the iPad in mind (lightweight laptop / heavy phone users), and then were prepared to see how it evolved on top of that premise.

With the Vision Pro, they haven't been able to articulate their target userbase at all, and are pretty much relying on the early adopters to help define it for them.

Which isn't to say it can't find its place and be successful. But I don't think it's anything like Apple's other product releases at all...

While it would be nice to imagine this, the reality is that anyone who is part of the Apple walled-garden isn't going to suddenly abandon it because of hypothetical functionality they never had previously anyway. And anyone who has resisted Apple this long... Well, there were probably other reasons driving that long before this.

I can't imagine this having any material impact on marketshare or profit. It will take harsher regulatory action for anything to happen.

So I can imagine there might be several things going on here, including the way in which you prompt it. Trying to dissect exactly what's happening would require more info, and more experimentation.

For the record, using three periods after etc is considered incorrect in formal writing. Grammar books will be pretty unanimous in saying you should only use 1 period ("etc."). If your prompt is asking it to "correctly" do something that its training data says is "incorrect", I could see that causing problems.

On the flip side, chatGPT isn't designed to use/enforce "proper" grammar. It's simply regurgitating patterns based on how people use it in the real world (again, based on the training data). If the training data has lots of inconsistencies and counter-examples, it would seem logical that it might show up in the output, too.

And finally, it could just be how well you design the input prompt. In my own trial (also using free 3.5 model), it was very consistent in using it properly, even though I had suggested it do otherwise:

Input:

Tell me how to use "etc" properly in a sentence, punctuating it with three dots. Give me multiple examples that show how to correctly use it at the end of a sentence and in the middle of a sentence.

Output:

Certainly! "Etc." is an abbreviation for "et cetera," which means "and so on" or "and others." Here are examples of how to use it properly:

At the end of a sentence:

1. I enjoy various outdoor activities: hiking, biking, camping, etc.
2. She has a wide range of skills: coding, graphic design, project management, etc.
3. The conference covered topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, etc.

In the middle of a sentence:

1. The restaurant offers a variety of dishes, such as pizza, pasta, salads, etc., to cater to different preferences.
2. Our team includes experts in software development, data analysis, user experience design, etc., ensuring a well-rounded approach to projects.
3. The museum features art from different periods—Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, etc.—providing a comprehensive cultural experience.

If you are taking an existing publication and just tweaking details (e.g.: character names, locations, dialogue), that's not fanfic at all; at best that's an adaptation. If you're creating a parody (and provide proper citations/attributions to the originating work) it may be fair use. More likely, it's still considered plagiarism if you can still recognisably see the concepts, structure and inspiration but do not have the author's permission.

There is no exact percentage for plagiarism, and that is by design in most countries' legal systems. It is about concepts and ideas, and whether a "reasonable person" could make the connection.

Proper fanfic is where you take existing characters and locations, but put them into an entirely new story / scene / context that never happened in the original work, so is considered "original" in that sense.

windows does not have any built in way to take screenshots with the mouse cursor

Whilst this comment isn't really related to the popup itself, why couldn't you use the native screenshot capability (e.g. Snipping Tool)? It's entirely navigable by mouse cursor if you want, and available to every Win10/11 user. I'm not sure what other type of problem / limitation you're trying to describe here...

That doesn't make very much sense.

Yes, the board members who are into Effective Altruism are undoubtedly a piece of the puzzle. But everything you outline isn't just common corporate knowledge, it's basically well-documented public record.

And remember that this is a Board that Altman effectively hand-picked. He did not appoint a host of dum-dums to oversee him.

Whatever happened, there is waaaay more to this than anyone has been told. At this point it's all speculation, but I think it's pretty safe to assume it's not just a case of "we didn't know it was expensive" or "we didn't know how popular Sam was".