• pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    I was going to make a joke that they could also replace the taskbar search bar with an AI chat bar, but after reading the article, it turns out that they’re planning on doing that for real:

    Windows 11 taskbar is now being “upgraded” with AI-first features. Microsoft is working on the Ask Copilot bar, which may replace Windows Search in the taskbar.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      14 hours ago

      This is madness. Madness? This is Wiiiiindoooows.

      Why the hell …

      They could just make another application. With compact mode to have as a prompt in the corner of the screen, similar to DigiCam or Winamp or other such.

      They could even eventually deprecate tools allowing to do the same things it provides.

      I can even say that conversational user interfaces are not all idiocy - at some point I dreamed of them replacing all the bright buttons and icons we have.

      People making this are not idiots.

      But putting a conversational user interface everywhere people expect to have one prompt and a response, preferably with clear logic of that response, - it’s just socially hostile behavior.

      There really is progress behind this! Or, more precisely, there is sanity, it’s not all hype. Making a useful GUI requires learning something about ergonomics and human psychology and tests, most UI designers don’t have a clue. And a conversational interface, like in old text quests or MUDs and with these AI chatbots, solves the problem. It doesn’t require memorizing a thousand commands and interpreter syntax like a command shell.

      Unless you make a UI with downsides of both and upsides of neither. Takes Microsoft to do this.