Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, has shared his opinion after recent pushback from users online that are becoming frustrated with Copilot and AI on Windows. In a post on X, Suleyman says he’s mind blown by the fact that people are unimpressed with the ability to talk fluently with an AI computer.
His post comes after Windows president Pavan Davuluri was recently met with major backlash from users online for posting about Windows evolving into an agentic OS. His post was so negatively received that he was forced to turn off replies, though Davuluri did later respond to reassure customers that the company was aware of the feedback.
Hey, when I have Iron man Jarvis-like chatting me up, running locally, and never ever messing anything up, I’ll be impressed.
So far I have semi-competent voice transcription, borked understanding, incorrect action 4/5 of the time, underwhelming, if not broken output, and most of the time this bad version is dependent on a datacenter that’s aiming at obliterating a star worth of power every two hours.
I WONDER why this is not seen as impressive.
Even if the Windows voice experience put Jarvis to shame, I wouldn’t be interested. I don’t want to use voice control on my computer. Just about the only time I actually need voice control are when I’m far away or my hands are busy; so it’s nice for turning lights on and off when I have my hands full, or controlling timers when I’m cooking, or turning music on without getting up from the couch. Sometimes I’ll use voice-to-text if I have a lot to say or need to think it through. But I almost never want voice control (even if it were completely perfect, which it is not!) for the same reason that I listen to podcasts on earbuds: I don’t want to bother other people! Certainly not while I’m working, and definitely not when it’s liable to take agentic actions for me.
Buttons, knobs, levers, sliders, keys—all of those are better than voice control 999 times out of 1000. I don’t even like touch screens that much, and I’d prefer them over voice control.
The Microsoft executives inhabit a different reality than I do.
Lucky you. When I use voice transcription my English gets automatically translated into Welsh.
I was being generous. For some reasons, when I try voice recognition it triggers as if I’m speaking Japanese. And when I actually try to speak Japanese, I get english gibberish.