Microsoft Patents A User-Monitoring AI That Improves Search Results (hothardware.com) 68
Slashdot reader MojoKid quotes a HotHardware article about Microsoft's new patent filing for an OS "mediation component":
This is Microsoft's all-seeing-eye that monitors all textual input within apps to intelligently decipher what the user is trying to accomplish. All of this information could be gathered from apps like Word, Skype, or even Notepad by the Mediator and processed. So when the user goes to, for example, the Edge web browser to further research a topic, those contextual concepts are automatically fed into a search query.
The search engine (e.g., Bing and Cortana) uses contextual rankers to adjust the ranking of the default suggested queries to produce more relevant [results]. The operating system...tracks all textual data displayed to the user by any application, and then performs clustering to determine the user intent (contextually).
The article argues this feels "creepy and big brother-esque," and while Microsoft talks of defining a "task continuum," suggests the patent's process "would in essence keep track of everything you type and interact with in the OS and stockpile it in real-time to data-dump into Bing."
The search engine (e.g., Bing and Cortana) uses contextual rankers to adjust the ranking of the default suggested queries to produce more relevant [results]. The operating system...tracks all textual data displayed to the user by any application, and then performs clustering to determine the user intent (contextually).
The article argues this feels "creepy and big brother-esque," and while Microsoft talks of defining a "task continuum," suggests the patent's process "would in essence keep track of everything you type and interact with in the OS and stockpile it in real-time to data-dump into Bing."
that's a little pessimistic... (Score:2)
w00t (Score:1)
y'know my searches work very well via google thank you
Re: (Score:1)
Google is just as bad for data harvesting. I use Startpage or DuckDuckGo.
Re: (Score:2)
So, Microsoft has patented a way to get information to fuel Bing searches through other means than, y'know, people actually using Bing search. Brilliant. All it takes is a monopoly on the OS that process your every keystroke. Beyond the fact that there's nothing novel about capturing data as data (duh), and this shouldn't be patentable, it is downright creepy - and just a little bit desperate.
Now, I'm sure some of you Google haters out there will try to make the point that Google does much the same, and
One question (Score:1)
What's "Bing"?
Another question (Score:1)
When will EditorDavid stop repeating in his comment what's right there in the summary.
So will he ever stop repeating what is right there in the summary. What do slashdot readers think?
that means it will succeed! (Score:2, Interesting)
"creepy and big brother-esque,
That means it will succeed wildly. People dig that shit. The more surveillance they are subjected to, the happier they seem to be. If they weren't, the modern world would be a very, very different (and less Orwellian) place, because they wouldn't keep buying commercial products that spy on them and voting for political candidates that promise to increase government-originated surveillance to keep them "safe".
So yeah. This should fit right in with what we've come to expect from modern consumer computing.
I don't mind (Score:2)
I don't mind having some software monitor my activity and provide opportunities to make like simpler. I quite like the idea. I have a huge problem with that information being sent off and collected in some far off place. I'm already quite spooked by the lack of privacy in Windows 10. But I'm also a bit spooked by Google and a bunch of other vendors who seem to expect to have access to quite personal information. I'm not a fan of big government - but this is one area I would like a bit more clarification on,
Re:I don't mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. A lot of us envisioned these sorts of "intelligent agents" many years ago, but I think we always envisioned they'd be local agents, or under our control somehow. Probably a bit naive, I guess.
Even so, the problem with using a local agent is that it would be difficult to automatically synchronize this information across all your devices. That's the benefit of a cloud-based service. The downside? Someone else has complete access to all the most intimate details of your life. And what privacy guarantees do we have? A "we promise" statement from the company that they won't abuse that power. Nevermind that all that data is a virtual goldmine to advertising agencies... I'm sure we can trust them.
I think that this could be done locally (and share an encrypted database in a service like Dropbox, etc), but there's no incentive for a corporation NOT to keep all that personal data in their own cloud. They'd have to work harder to cut out their own ecosystem and protect the user's privacy. And frankly, it would be harder for the end-user to use, and less convenient than using Cortana, Siri, Alexa, or Google's bots. It would be tough for such a system to gain widespread adoption. And we've seen, via Linux as a desktop OS, that simply being free and open is NOT enough to drive mass adoption.
Re: (Score:2)
"Even so, the problem with using a local agent is that it would be difficult to automatically synchronize this information across all your devices."
If the other devices can connect to "cloud" services then they can connect to your home server to achieve the same with no additional difficulty.
I am soooo happy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I am soooo happy (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the Year of the Linux Desktop.®
Re: (Score:2)
Stop talking about it in the future tense and do it already. One system was converted a month ago. The second system is in progress.
Sounds just like (Score:2)
what Google does. That's what makes a Google and Facebook so creepy. Microsoft is catching up to them.
No, not creepy or Big Brother at all (Score:3, Interesting)
Just what we need. A private company storing everything we type on their servers without our approval.
You know what I don't need? Someone telling me what they think I'm thinking. It's bad enough Microsoft has gotten people into the nastily bad habit of thinking they have to search for everything on their own system or network* rather than going to the source, now they want us to believe we're incapable of asking the questions we want.
Guess it's a good thing I won't be using W10 except at work where we can turn this crap off.
* Even after we show them how to use the command line to connect to a print server, people are still insistent on "searching" the network to find a printer then complain when they can't locate it. Stop searching! Go to the source.
Re: (Score:2)
On one hand, I don't think that Microsoft can be trusted with sensitive government data, and that the government will probably have to pick a new operating system or make their own in order to help ensure their security.
On the other hand, I don't believe the government can be trusted with sensitive government data.
Penultimate arrogance (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
They're not even bothering to call their surveillance software by some other name to obfuscate it's actual purpose anymore, they're coming right out and telling you: We are watching and recording everything you say, do, and type, and are analyzing that data to predict your intentions. The only obfuscation left is saying it's for 'Bing', when it's also going to government agencies. It is clear now that anyone who actually tolerates this violation of their civil liberties and human rights just doesn't understand the implications of what is being done to them, and needs to have it explained to them, so they can be properly outraged. Microsoft needs to be dismantled, plain and simple.
Unfortunately when you mention or try to explain this to people they 1) Don't believe you. 2) Say "I don't have anything to hide". 3) Say "There is nothing I can do, so I will tolerate it".
There is a fourth option but most people find that too difficult to comprehend much less implement.
Re: (Score:1)
prior art (Score:4, Interesting)
More than 10 years ago I wrote something similar for KDE. It was called Knapsack. It monitored all keys pressed on the X desktop, all text on the clipboard and the title of the active window. It used all that text to show files related to the users current activity.
Every time a user would click a suggested file, the system would get positive feedback about that suggestion in that context: it learned.
https://mail.kde.org/pipermail... [kde.org]
Legitimately confusing (Score:1)
First, it's astonishing to me that the answer to the problem of the user being bad at searching is ever more encroachment on their privacy instead of teaching users how to search. The only thing you're actually doing in making searches attempt to account for bad searches is giving bad rules to good searches. Why is it not good enough that a search engine is a tool and you have to spend a little time learning to feel out its edges, much like you'd have to get a feel for what angles and distances produce whic
One small question... (Score:2)
Improves search results for whom?
Re: (Score:2)
I saw Thulsa Doom [wikipedia.org] in Trondheim over the summer. Not bad, but not really worship-level quality, either.
Horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate this sort of thing. Not just for the surveillance problem, that's self-evident how awful it is.
I hate it because I want a search engine to give me clean results for every search. I search for very different things for very different reasons, and they don't frequently have anything to do with anything I'm typing in an app. Having even my previous searches coloring the results I get is worse than unhelpful, it's actively detrimental.
If I'm searching for an app install failure, I don't want results related to the movie I was looking for yesterday, and I don't want results related to the Arizona Revised Statutes search I did an hour ago to answer a legal question for a friend. And I certainly don't want it to know about the sales proposal I typed up earlier today.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed, and then some.
I've tried various search engines, and whenever I used Bing, it would return results that it thinks I want, but not actually what I want. For that reason alone, I can't recommend it for anyone competent.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupidCauseTheSubjectIsTFA (Score:2)
Scary thought: Clippy with AI (Score:2)
Clippy was bad enough on his own. I don't think giving him an AI and access to every program would be any better.
Clippy v2.0 (Score:2)
Guy2: "Really? No way! I loved the Portal series. I need to find out more about this."
Guy2: Begins typing 'portal' into the Cortana search box
Clippy: "It looks like you're searching for porn. Here are some suggestions."
GF: "WTF are you doing on the computer?"
digital assistant final selection challenge (Score:2)
For this one, no pretense of family language.
This post will cover first the competition fine print; then the long-term relationship; and, finally, the lamentable low bar responsible for this Tourettic outburst.
***
To qualify for certification, the DA candidate must be able to distinguish when I'm searching something deserving to bring it more fully into my consciousness, and when I'm searching something horrawful to determine the appropriate size of BFBM (big fucking black marker) required to cross that POS
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. (Score:2)
you get that when you want to look for "how to disable AI search".
corporate keylogger. (Score:2)
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Improves? (Score:2)
What does that actually mean? Is it "improved" as in "reducing the amount of crap advertising that is pushed to the user", or is it "improved" as in "New, Improved Recipe", which basically means they have found a new way of adulterating a product, so it is cheaper to produce?
Re: (Score:2)
Does Microsoft keylog now? (Score:2)