Hacker News Reader

Comment by infinitezest | Hacker News Reader

I have a really hard time understanding the use case for something like this. Stuff that I want to remember I just write down or reference something like my browser history or recently opened files. It's very low tech for sure but it works, is waaay more energy efficient, way easier to understand and audit, and doesnt have the same security concerns. I get that using "AI" has a Wow Factor that existing systems have but I cannot understand the thinking of folks that are OK with the trade-off. Ita just not even close for me.

View on HN

I definitely get the use case. It's naive to ignore that there is utility.

But just because something has utility doesn't mean it comes at high costs. I mean it's a super powerful keylogger that is searchable without technical knowledge. Not to mention that it'll probably fail to LLM type of attacks, which even many non technical people are able to figure out.

But then again, I don't understand why people so passionately store all their chat logs (not just important/memorable messages) and take millions of photos. We kinda spy on ourselves

Yeah it can be very useful. The only way I'd trust it is if it was a box that MITM the HDMI/DP cable and has clearly no connectivity to the outside world. It can do OCR locally, store things locally, I don't even want it queryable from a computer. Maybe a standalone terminal.

Even then I wouldn't. Just the same way I wouldn't trust a keylogger on my system no matter what. This is more invasive than a keylogger.

And per my other comment [0], I think it just creates a big attack surface and makes extracting data and passwords from machines much easier. And as suggested by another user, I suspect this will be used to enforce Chat Control for those in Europe.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40612851

We used to use a similar tool in QA. Often when you accidentally reproduce something - especially something rare - you don't even realize it happened until it happened and then you can't remember what you did to produce it. Being able to look back even just a few minutes can save you hours of attempting to figure out what the magic was.

Now that I'm a developer, I often get into the flow and find myself knee deep in some work, but I forget to write notes about what I was doing. Coming back the next day, I often can't remember what issue I ran in to or how I fixed it. Having a quick way to review what I did the previous day is very helpful.

I can see a lot of potential uses for this technology, but I'm quite wary of any service that involves sending all of that data to some third party. Regardless of how much they might swear they won't use it for anything else, every company eventually sells your data for extra profit - it's just too tempting.

Have a look at Rewind.ai for some idea about the use cases maybe. Some people are already paying for the feature, so it clearly has some value.

https://www.rewind.ai/

Personally, data privacy/protection and compliance aside, I’d find it fairly useful on my work computer.

I think the product itself can be useful, but Microsoft is the second last organization that I would ever trust to implement it correctly, only after governments.

Giving your screen recordings to Microsoft is like giving a loaded gun to a toddler.

I agree, I think the current state of the AI is absolutely incredible technology, but I just don't see a 'product' yet.

If chat and co-pilots are all we get out of this wave of investment, then I'm not sure if it's been worth it.

I see a lot of cool little use cases (eg, LLMs are genuinely fantastic for creative brainstorming), but I'm absolutely not seeing the multi-trillion dollar AI industry that all the big companies are clearly banking on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com