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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, folks are so doom and gloom about a product that, if it was made by anyone other than Microsoft who attracts all the blogspam hate, would get articles like "How this startup is using AI to help ADHD sufferers." People really need to stop falling for "<Household Name> Does Thing, Here's Why It's Bad" outrage bait.

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If it were some random startup that was going to be gone in 2 years anyways I wouldn't have to worry about being opted-in without my knowledge.

It does matter more because it's Microsoft doing it.

Make absolutely no mistake, when the average startup has failed and investors come for its assets, they sell any user data they can.

The acquisition of valuable user data is frequently used as a bargaining chip during funding negotiations.

There's nothing hypocritical here. There are lots of things that are harmless/beneficial when you choose to do them which become sinister once they're enabled by default.

I would also add scale matters.

Some minor % of the population doing what they want? Eh, who cares, thats called freedom.

A large chunk of the population having their experience changed in a very important manner by default is a whole other ball game.

Well yeah, which is why you have to specifically go out and buy a "Copilot" computer that prominently advertises this as the reason you would want it. Does that meet the bar for disabled by default?

It seems really implausible that someone would find themselves using one of these PCs and not knowing it.

Given how heavily they’re pushing these AI features, I have to assume in a few years all mid to high end offerings from virtually every big brand will be a Copilot+ PC (MS is still the king at naming things btw). After all the only differentiator is a NPU.

Very plausible. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of purchasers have only a dim notion of what RAM beyond more==better is, let alone "Copilot". Especially if it is marketed as a feature, which it is.

That it's Microsoft doing it is a big part of the objection, true. It's not unreasonable. Microsoft doesn't exactly have a great reputation when it comes to data collection and the like for good reasons.

FWIW, "startup" is almost just as bad as "Microsoft" in this headline. Hell, I'd trust Microsoft more with my ADHD than a random startup, because the former is a large legal and media target and has a lot to lose, while many startups - including a lot of well-known ones - are glorified fly-by-night operations that, even if they won't screw you outright, will disappear in a couple of years (whether by shutting down or getting acquired), leaving you with sunk costs and no alternatives (well-funded startups tend to suck out air from the space they're operating in before disappearing themselves).

See what the community thought of Rewind for yourself, then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744213

That's about the Rewind Pendant which you're physically wearing, not Rewind the program.

The program was received no better.

Blogspam hate has a higher quality than the advertising Microsoft shows on their Edge startpage. Sometimes trashy things deserve trashy criticism.

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