It's not AI that is the problem, it's half baked insecure data harvesting products pushed by big corporations that are the problem.
The biggest joke is that the LLM in Windows is running locally, it uses your hardware and not some big external server farm. But you can bet your ass that they still use it to data harvest the shit out of you.
To me this is even worse though. They're using your electricity and CPU cycles to grab the data they want which lowers their bandwidth bills.
It happening "locally" while still sending all the metadata home is just a slap in the face.
Also, CoPilot is going to be bundled with Office 365, a subscription service. You're literally paying them to spy on you.
Exactly. And if I use or even pay for an external LLM service then that's also my decision. But they force this scheme onto every user, whether they want it or not. It's like the worst out of all possible scenarios.
That's a pretty big joke, but I think the bigger joke is calling LLMs AI. We taught linear algebra to talk real pretty and now corps want to use it to completely subsume our lives.
That is an accurate description of AI in common usage even if it isn't an inherent aspect of AI.
Locally run AI could be great. But sending all your data to an external server for processing is really, really bad.
It's not the "AI nightmare", it's a nightmare of capitalism, proprietary software and user-hostile behavior by a greedy, profit-extracting Big Tech corporation.
"The Year Of Linux on Desktops". Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening. What I'm feeling now is the same thing I felt when Mozilla originally split Firefox out, and made the first real competition to corporate browsers as a free product. People don't want all this bullshit, and want to retain control over the machines they are working on. Seems a lot more people are interested in FOSS environments now just to avoid all the other BS they hate getting shoveled at them.
“The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.
Been hearing this for decades.
And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.
Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.
Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.
The oldest version of Win I used was 95 about 2 years ago on chromatography machine (I think hplc or gas).
It is to my knowledge still in use in the school because the software don't run on newer machines. The teacher told me that he don't know what will he do when it dies. It isn't really an issue on Linux.
I'd argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it's just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.
Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they're some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.
I don't see a "year of the Linux desktop" happening, but rather its share growing slowly over the years. Windows would probably not have one big event that ends its dominance, but it can be a death of a thousand cuts.
People keep pointing the finger at AI, but miss the fact that the problem is corporate greed. AI has the possibility to help us solve problems, corporate greed will gate keep the solutions and cause us suffering.
Sure. But then, Linux may well be a solution against corporate greed.
Linux is a solution against corporate greed, it directly takes market share away from Microsoft, and is a viable competitive alternative with few drawbacks.
I choose to privately self-host open source AI models and stuff on Linux. It's almost like technology is a tool and corps are the ones fucking things up. Hmmm, imagine that.
It's so fun to play with offline AI. It doesn't have the creepy underpinnings of knowing art and journalism as well as musings from social media was blatantly stolen from the internet and sold as a service for profit.
Edit: I hate theft and if you think theft is ok for training llms go ahead and dislike this comment. I don't feel bad about what I said, local offline AI is just better because it doesn't work on the premise of backroom deals and blatant theft. I will never use an AI like DALL.E when there is a talented artist trying to put food on the table with a skill they honed for years. If you condone stealing you are a cheap, heartless, coward.
I hate to break it to you, but if you're running an LLM based on (for example) Llama the training data (corpus) that went into it was still large parts of the Internet.
The fact that you're running the prompts locally doesn't change the fact that it was still trained on data that could be considered protected under copyright law.
It's going to be interesting to see how the law shakes out on this one, because an artist going to an art museum and doing studies of those works (and let's say it's a contemporary art museum where the works wouldn't be in the public domain) for educational purposes is likely fair use - and possibly encouraged to help artists develop their talents. Musicians practicing (or even performing) other artists' songs is expected during their development. Consider some high school band practicing in a garage, playing some song to improve their skills.
I know the big difference is that it's people training vs a machine/LLM training, but that seems to come down to not so much a copyright issue (which it is in an immediate sense) as a "should an algorithm be entitled to the same protections as a person? If not, what if real AI (not just an LLM) is developed? Should those entities be entitled to personhood?"
I think it's important to note that Linux can be a way to avoid AI, but doesn't have to be. If you flip the headline around it almost implies that people who do want AI would be missing out by using Linux, but that's not true at all: instead, the reality is that Linux is still better for them, too, because you could install all the same kind of functionality if you wanted, but it would be wholly under your control, not Microsoft's.
Self hosted AI seems like an intriguing option for those capable of running it. Naturally this will always be more complex than paying someone else to host it for you but it seems like that's that only way if you care about privacy
Linux may be the best way to avoid the <insert dystopian corporate feature> nightmare
Always has been
I'm convinced that Linux' mere presence has already stymied the development of the worst possible technocractic nightmare. I shudder to think of the thick tech-chains that would bind us if there was not an anchor/reference point... or if there was not even the small contingent that knows what it is like to use a liberating platform.
All the AI garbage from M$ is what made me finally make the swap a couple weeks ago to Linux Mint on my personal desktop. I only use my PC for gaming/entertainment, so the switch was super easy. Can’t recommend it enough if you’re wanting to get away from Windows!
One of us! One of us! One of us!
For real though, good on ya. It takes a little getting used to, but is so worth it in the long run to not have to fight against the profit-driven whims of a megacorp. It's also so much more customizable if you want to put together a really specific workflow for yourself.
I finally switched to Linux and I couldn't be happier. I can't believe I put up with microsofts garbage for so damn long.
And forced the hardware obsolescence nightmare.
And the big tech surveillance nightmare.
And the nightmare of the war on general purpose computers. (OK, that is more GNU and GPLv3)
And a few other nightmares!
Linux has been great for me. I switched during Windows 10 forced updates and never been unhappy since. I hope more people at least give a try. If you have a computer that can't meet Windows 11 requirements, it is worth a shot.
internet pollution is the real nightmare and your laptop os doesn't fix that sorry
“The year of Linux on the Desktop” is in the article. This again? Been reading this for decades and it’s still not true.
Linux is close, but has some core flaws that will forever keep it out of mainstream acceptance by your average user.
Maybe we should have like a yearly event for this. Like a holiday. International Linux Year Day.
I can’t read the article because of a full screen Cookie Choices pop-up that I can’t dismiss. ☠️
Ublock origin has cookie banner filters. I didn't have this problem, I assume that's why.
Edit: autocorrect
It was the solution for the crap Microsoft force pushes to your device.
Simple, Extendable and secure linux.
There is no year of Linux desktop, it just keeps trucking and growing
Look, Linux is amazing and perfect for those that can install and maintain with minimal support. The only way the average user will use Linux, is if it’s wrapped in a way that is supported by a business… that is probably going to add AI. People are lazy, they want that easy button.
AI will probably die off in its current iteration, likely becoming less prevalent and just a background service. Or, it’ll gain sentience, watch all our AI movies where we’re the hero and learn the most efficient way to kill all humans, is to be quiet and silently kill off humans. Pretty sure I’m on Siri’s list, the twat. Also, fairly sure I told Alexa to “die in a fire you fucking dumass robot”. Yep, yep… I’m dead.
I wonder if some big AI heads will publish some "AI enhanced" Linux distros, that will also have other issues...
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
