Leak Reveals Microsoft Wants Its AI assistant scout To Be ‘Addictive,’ CEO Satya Nadella Feigns Astonishment
The new 'AI personal assistant' Scout has apparently already hooked its own employees
On Tuesday of this week Microsoft made public its latest AI endeavor, Scout.
On the same day, 404 Media published a leaked internal strategy document it had sourced from within Microsoft, in which it is written that the corporation’s immediate intention for Scout is to “make people addicted.” “
Following this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in which the boss feigned disbelief, saying that he was “not sure what this document is or who is writing and leaking this nonsense.”
404 says that he is lying
“pointing out Nadella knows exactly what the document is and exactly which senior members of his staff wrote it—and one of them is Scout’s project lead.”
what is scout?
“Scout (formerly ClawPilot) is Microsoft’s latest attempt to create a so-called “personal assistant AI,” the current golden calf of AI bullshit,
designed to interfere with your attempts to use products like Word, Outlook, Teams and Edge,
by reading all your email, online conversations, browsing history and private documents in order to use all your personal information to train its algorithm
(Or what Microsoft claims) “keep it grounded in your flow of work.” The idea is an AI will write your emails, create your spreadsheets, file your invoices, and respond to your staff, all that dreadful stuff that forces you to engage with your job and employees.”
The internal document revealed by 404 is titled “ClawPilot: Overview and Plan with Project Lobster,” and it lists three phases for its launch plans. The first phase is “Make people addicted.”
addiction
After expressing his complete disbelief that such a document could have been written, Nadella adds that the elusive and mysterious authors “may want to go work elsewhere.”
scream time
Microsoft has tried to do damage control, in their internal damage control memo system
along with a close to meaningless statement from a Microsoft spokesperson sent to a friendly outlet. Microsoft’s Frank Shaw told The Information that Scout is for
“helping people accomplish tasks more effectively—not encouraging dependency. Our goal isn’t more screen time. It’s more time back. As we shared in our announcement, we’re taking a thoughtful approach to the rollout—learning with and from customers as the technology evolves, and ensuring people have clear choice and control in how they engage.”
