What a trash click bait headline. That’s not how the statement “saying the quiet part out loud” works. This isn’t a secret and it’s not unspoken and it certainly doesn’t not reveal some underlying motive.
The world is healing
Yeah, I’m not sure what the point of a cheap NPU is.
If you don’t like AI, you don’t want it.
If you do like AI, you want a big GPU or to run it on somebody else’s much bigger hardware via the internet.
I actually do care about AI PCs. I care in the sense that it is something I want to actively avoid.
I want to run LLMs locally, or things like TTS or STT locally so it’s nice but there’s no real support rn
Most people won’t care nor use it
LLMs are best used when it’s a user choice, not a platform obligation
It doesn’t confuse us… it annoys us with the blatant wrong information. e.g. glue is a pizza ingredient.
That’s when you use 3 years old models
Are you trying to make us believe that AI doesn’t hallucinate?
It doesn’t, it generates incorrect information. This is because AI doesn’t think or dream, it’s a generative technology that outputs information based on whatever went in. It can’t hallucinate because it can’t think or feel.
Hallucinate is the word that has been assigned to what you described. When you don’t assign additional emotional baggage to the word, hallucinate is a reasonable word to pick to decribe when an llm follows a chain of words that have internal correlation but no basis in external reality.
No, but I was specifically talking about the glue and pizza example
“Recall was met with serious backlash”. Meanwhile I’m looking for a simple setting regarding the power button on my wife’s phone and stumble upon a setting that is enabled by default that has Gemini scanning the screen and using it for whatever it is that it does, but my wife doesn’t use any AI features on her device. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this basically the same as Recall? Google was just smart enough to silently roll this out.
Isn’t this only triggered when user use Gemini (and the google assistant before). To use something like circle to search. I’m rather sure this already exists before AI craze
That is the assumption but that is explicitly spelled out somewhere. I’m not sure you can trust it.
Yeah, Google assistant was able to read your screen and take screenshots when asked years ago.
Doesn’t confuse me, just pisses me off trying to do things I don’t need or want done. Creates problems to find solutions to
Can the NPU at least stand in as a GPU in case you need it?
No as it doesn’t compute graphical information and is solely for running computations for “AI stuff”.
GPUs aren’t just for graphics. They speed up vector operations, including those used in “AI stuff”. I just never heard of NPUs before, so I imagine they may be hardwired for graph architecture of neural nets instead of linear algebra, maybe, so that’s why they can’t be used as GPUs.
Nope. Don’t need it
Stolen from BSKY
This is extra funny to me since I just re-watched this episode the other day
Weirdly dell always seems to understand what normal users want.
The problem is normal users have beyond low expectations, no standards and are ignorant of most everything tech related.
They want cheap and easy to use computers that require no service and if there is a problem a simple phone number to call for help.
Dell has optimized for that. So hate em or not, while their goods have gone to shit quality wise. They understand their market and have done extremely well in servicing it.
Thus I am not surprised at all dell understood this. If anything I would have been more surprised if they didn’t.
I think they all understand what we want (broadly), they just don’t care, because what they want is more important, and they know consumers will tolerate it.
They care, they just care differently. What they want is money, so they’re trying to find what the maximum price is they can sell the minimum amount of product for.
If they can dress that up as “caring for the consumer” it’s a bonus.
You’re not thinking about the bigger picture. They can sell you an irrepairable device, design it to fail after a short time so you have to buy another one, upsell you on useless AI shit to pump up investments, and load it with a bunch of invasive software so they can collect and sell information about you. None of this has anything to do with what you, the consumer, want, and they know that, but they don’t care, because it’s not what makes them money.
And yet just before looking at Lemmy I got an ad for the Dell AI laptop on YouTube (on my TV, still need to get a piHole up and running).
on YouTube (on my TV, still need to get a piHole up and running
Unfortunately that won’t help. The Youtube ads are served from the same domains as the videos, so a DNS based blocker is inherently powerless.
FWIW, Linux + FireFox + Ublock still blocks 100% of YouTube ads for me.
Can confirm, Firefox with uBlock Origin works. The OS doesn’t seem to matter. I use that combination on Linux (Fedora 43), Windows (10), macOS (15) and Android (16), no YouTube ads anywhere.
Just stop using the TV like that. Hook up a small Linux computer via hdmi and use that instead.
I have an older MacBook with standard hdmi, but there are some creators I really like on YouTube and we have an ancient Roku stick that still works. The remote is convenient and I usually go pee during the ads.
What companies actually make decent mid-range laptops these days?
Framework makes some very high quality laptops. Have one myself.
How is their site (and product) as an option for your non-techy mum? Also does shipping end up being exorbitant if you’re not in the same country they’re based in?
They have a fully prebuilt option for every computer. Which works well for non-techy people.
No clue what shipping is like in your country. Was fine for me in the US.
Seconded on Framework. I’ve got the more performant (but more heavy, large, and expensive) 16, but for most people the 13 will be perfectly usable. The newer 12 model also seems pretty decent and is a bit cheaper.
They’ve kept their RAM prices relatively stable too, but if you already have other RAM lying around you can just bring your own and save yourself the money. Same for the SSD.
The main downside is they’re gonna be quite expensive upfront compared to alternatives, so I wouldn’t recommend them to someone price-sensitive, especially in the current economy.
The main benefit is that since they’re so modular and upgradable, you’ll save money down the line on repair services, replacement parts, or just the cost of buying a whole new device because one component broke that they don’t sell replacements for.
That is gold
What people don’t want is blackbox AI agents installed system-wide that use the carrot of “integration and efficiency” to justify bulk data collection, that the end user implicitly agrees to by logging into the OS.
God forbid people want the compute they are paying for to actually do what they want, and not work at cross purposes for the company and its various data sales clients.
Unveiling: the APU!!! (ad processing unit)
Just there to create ads based on your usage.
But hey, now ads load much faster and relevant to you, making everything snappier and slicker! Who wouldn’t pay more for such an upgrade???
God forbid people want the compute they are paying for to actually do what they want, and not work at cross purposes for the company and its various data sales clients.
I think that way of thinking is still pretty niche.
Hope it’s becoming more widespread, but in my experience most people don’t actually concern themselves with “my device does some stuff in the background that goes beyond what I want it for” - in their ignorance of Technology, they just assume it’s something that’s necessary.
I think were people have problems is mainly at the level of “this device is slower at doing what I want it to do than the older one” (for example, because AI makes it slower), “this device costs more than the other one without doing what I want it to do any better” (for example, they’re unwilling to pay more for the AI functionality) or “this device does what I want it to do worse than before/that-one” (for example, AI is forced on users, actually making the experience of using that device worse, such as with Windows 11).
I think you’re making the mistake of thinking the general population is as informed or cares as much about AI as people on Lemmy.
As time goes by I’m finding a place for AI.
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I use it for information searches, but only in cases where I know the information exists and there is an actual answer. Like history questions or asking for nuanced definitions of words and concepts.
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I use it to manipulate documents. I have a personal pet peeve about the format of most recipes for example. Recipes always list the ingredient amounts in a table at the top, but then down in the steps they just say “add the salt” or “mix in the flour.” Then I have to look up at the chart and find the amount of salt/flour, and then I lose my place in the steps and have to find it again. I just have AI throw out the chart and integrate the amounts into the steps: “mix in 2 cups of flour”. I can have it shorten the instructions too and break them into easier to read bullet points. I also ask it to make ingredient substitutions and other modifications. The other day I gave it a bread recipe and asked it to introduce a cold-proofing step and reformat everything the way I like. It did great.
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Learning interactively. When I need to absorb a new skill or topic I sometimes do it conversationally with AI. Yes I can find articles and videos but then I am stuck with the information they lay out and the pace and order in which they do it. With AI you can stop and ask clarifying questions, or have it skip over the parts you already know. I find this is way faster than laborious googling. However only trust it for very straightforward topics. Like “explain the different kinds of welding and what they are for.” I wouldn’t trust it for more nuanced topics where perspective and opinion come into it. And I’ve leaned that it isn’t great at topics where there isn’t enough information out there. Like very niche questions about the meta of a certain video game that’s only been out a month.
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Speech to text and summarization. AI records all my Zoom meetings for work and gives summaries of what was discussed and next steps. This is always better than nothing. I’m also impressed with how it seems to understand how to discard idle chit chat and only record actual work content. At most it says “the meeting began with coworkers exchanging details from their respective weekends.”
This kind of hard-and-fast summarization and manipulation of factual text is much easier with AI. Doing my job for me? No. Hovering over my entire computer? No. Writing my emails for me? Fuck off.
The takeaway is that specific tools I can go to when I need them, for point-specific needs, is all I want. I don’t need or what a hovering AI around all the time, and I don’t want whatever tripe Dell can come up with when I can get the best latest models direct from the leading players.
Extent of my comfort with AI is through website and interaction is limited to copy and paste or upload. Capabilities not running on a system level.
But, when it comes to actually running on hardware and being able to do things by reading what is on the screen or hearing what is said I don’t trust AI to be secure or privacy respecting. When it comes to that type of functionality I’ll only trust ones that is compiled myself to run locally as opposed to provided by a corporations who are largely in the business of data collection.
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Holy crap that Recall app that “works by taking screenshots” sounds like such a waste of resources. How often would you even need that?
Virtually everything described in this article already exists in some way…
It’s such a stupid approach to the stated problem that I just assumed it was actually meant for something else and the stated problem was to justify it. And made the decision to never use win 11 on a personal machine based on this “feature”.
So, it’s not really a problem I’ve run into, but I’ve met a lot of people who have difficulty on Windows understanding where they’ve saved something, but do remember that they’ve worked on or looked at it at some point in the past.
My own suspicion is that part of this problem stems from the fact that back in the day, DOS had a not-incredibly-aimed-at-non-technical-users filesystem layout, and Windows tried to avoid this by hiding that and stacking an increasingly number of “virtual” interfaces on top of things that didn’t just show one the filesystem, whether it be the Start menu or Windows Explorer and file dialogs having a variety of things other than just the filesystem to navigate around. The result is that you have had Microsoft banging away for much of the lifetime of Windows trying to add more ways to access files, most of which increase the difficulty of actually understanding what is going on fully through the extra layers. But regardless of why, some users do have trouble with it.
So if you can just provide a search that can summon up that document where they were working on that had a picture of giraffes by typing “giraffe” into some search field, maybe that’ll do it.
I’d much rather have a more powerful generic CPU than a less powerful generic CPU with an added NPU.
There are very few people who would benefit from an added NPU, ok I hear you say what about local AI?
Ok, what about it?
Would you trust a commercial local AI tool to not be sharing data?
Would your grandmother be able to install an open source AI tool?
What about having enough RAM for the AI tool to run?
Look at the average computer user, if you are on lemmy, chances are very high that you are far more advanced than the average computer user.
I am talking about those users who don’t run Adblocker, don’t notice the YT ad skip button and who in the past would have installed a minimum of of five toolbars in IE, yet wouldn’t have noticed the reduced view of the actual page.
These people are closer to the average users than any of us.
Why do they need local AI?
Just offer NPUs as PCIe extension cards. Thats how computers used to be and should be. Modular and versatile.
Already existed for half a decade.
Google Coral is probably the most famous and is mainly suited for small IoT devices, e.g. speeding up image recognition for security cameras. They come in all shapes and sizes though.
M.2 Accelerator A+E key | Coral - https://www.coral.ai/products/m2-accelerator-ae
I considered getting one of these in the past for Frigate, but I ended up getting Reolink cameras with human detection built-in.
The fact that i didnt know about those means that consumers have zero need for them and building them into consumer hardware is just an attempt to keep the AI bubble afloat.
Exactly!
I could even see the cards having ram slots, so you can add dedicated ram to the NPU to remove the need for sharing ram with the system
There’s also the fact that many NPUs are pretty much useless unless used for a very specific model built for the hardware, so there’s no real point having them
My understanding from a very brief skim of what Microsoft was doing with Copilot is to take screenshots constantly, run image recognition on it, and then make it searchable as text and have the ability to go back and view those screenshots in a timeline. Basically, adding more search without requiring application-level support.
They may also have other things that they want to do, but that was at least one.
EDIT: They specifically called that feature “Recall”, and it was apparently the “flagship” feature of Copilot.
Do you mean Copilot, the local indexer and search tool or do you mean Copilot the web based AI chat bot or do you mean Copilot the rebranded Office suite or do you mean … etc.
Seriously, talk about watering down a brand name. Microsoft marketing team are all massive, massive fuck knuckles.
Hey, the last one is great.
Now when I get asked “what do you think about Copilot,” I can just say, “I prefer LibreOffice”
an added NPU
cmiiw but I don’t think NPUs are meant to be used on general-purpose personal computers. A GPU makes more sense.
NPUs are meant for specialised equipment e.g. object detection in a camera (not the personal-use kind)
They are in general purpose PCs though. Intel has them taking up die space in a bunch of their recent core ultra processors.
That’s stupid.
Probably not even general purpose GPUs, although we sucked it up when RT and Tensor cores were put on a plate whenever we like it or not. These though at least provided something to the consumer unlike NPUs.
Why not just leave it alone inside a browser tab? If I want AI, and I use it quite a lot, I will go into their website. Don’t force it system wide, just sucks
They want their greasy tendrils all up in your PC’s guts. Every bit of info flowing in your system can be monetized. All they care about is money and dominance and their “AI” in everyone’s devices is their wet dream.
Cancer is preferable to tech bros as cancer doesn’t know its killing the host. Tech bros know full well their actions are killing the planet and its inhabitants. Their actions are willfully vile and toxic; completely at odds with the needs of humanity.
Don’t expect them to ever do the right thing for anyone but themselves.
This is pretty much a “all Tech companies have to jump on the AI hype train” pressure on publicly traded companies and those who need lots of investor money, and little if at all customer pressure.
All investors want their money to be in the same place as those who invested in Google before it made it big, and the AI hype promises exactly that to the “winners” of the AI race.
Customer needs and demands are well below secondary to investor pressure, especially for companies which have dominant market positions (so general customers have no decent alternatives) and startups whose entire business model is AI.
Dell is the first Windows OEM to openly admit that the AI PC push has failed. Customers seem uninterested in buying a laptop because of its AI capabilities, likely prioritizing other aspects such as battery life, performance, and display above AI.
Silicon Valley always had the annoying habit of pushing technology-first products without even much consideration of how they would solve real world problems. It always had it, but it’s becoming increasingly bad. When Zuck unveiled the Metaverse it was already starting to be ludicrous, but with the AI laptop wave it turned into Onion territory.
What do you mean? Do you even have ANY foundation to this accusation?
Hold on, I need to turn off my heater. 22211123222234663fffvsnbvcsdfvxdxsssdfgvvgfgg
There it is. The off button. Touch controls are so cool guys.
Ha! Enjoy your off button while they still make them. Once our AI Overlords have won the War, you can only politely ask your laptop to please temporarily quiet itself, please and thank you if it’s not too much asking.
