A Why?: Why Everyone Hates Microsoft Copilot - DTNSB 5093  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: A Why?: Why Everyone Hates Microsoft Copilot - DTNSB 5093 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a2b018f0-534b-4efe-9704-996b9707fba3 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Copilot Built Into 2025 Samsung TVs** - Samsung will integrate Microsoft Copilot into its 2025 Vision AI experience across TVs and monitors. - Copilot can use viewing habits and signed-in histories to improve results and answer context-specific questions. Transcript: Tom Merritt Samsung announced it will incorporate Microsoft Co-Pilot into the Samsung Vision AI experience, which is basically the assistant on its 2025 TVs and monitors. You'll be able to get it in the home screen, Samsung Daily Plus, and click to search. If you're a Samsung user, you might know what those are. Basically what happens is you can either use the voice command on your TV or select Copilot on the remote. And then I don't know if you saw when the little Microsoft blob, it kind of looks like a peach or a pink teardrop. Huyen Tue Dao Oh, is that what that is? Tom Merritt Yeah. They showed that off earlier this year. That'll be on the Samsung TVs. And then it'll answer your questions, respond to your queries, et cetera. Search results will be improved because they can be based on what the model knows about your viewing habits on the machine. If you sign into the Copilot app with your Microsoft login, it can reference previous conversations. You don't have to do that, but that's a benefit you get if you do. It can also answer questions about what you're viewing. You can say like, who's that actor? Who's the quarterback? Which one of these guys is Travis Kelsey? Stuff like that. Plot summaries. Can you know if you want to like, can you tell me what happened on the first three episodes when you're coming back into a show. And Samsung promises it can, quote, support foreign language learning or help break down complex concepts. I didn't see any examples of the complex concepts that it would break down. Quantum mechanics? Huyen Tue Dao Yeah. Tom Merritt Can you just, because that's what I want for my television. Yeah, exactly. I can see the foreign language thing maybe, you know, with subtitles and stuff. Anyway, Samsung TVs also have a lifestyle hub already for like food and recipes and all that. And you'll be able to talk to CoPilot about food and wellness and other topics beyond entertainment. It's worth noting that Samsung isn't the only one bringing CoPilot to TVs. LG is supposed to bring them as well. This is just the first launch. ([Time 0:02:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9dc189e7-f13d-4099-a228-3078ea885e2d)) - **Negative Reaction Is Mixed Causes** - People reacted strongly against Copilot on TVs, blending general chatbot fatigue with corporate mistrust. - The reaction mixes negativity toward chatbots and longstanding suspicion of Microsoft-specific moves. Transcript: Tom Merritt This continues the pushback of Google Assistant on these TVs. Samsung uses its own Tizen OS, so it's not a shock. LG uses its own web OS. And while they could and have used Assistant, and they could but have not add Gemini, that's probably what Google would prefer, they've chosen to strike deals with Microsoft instead. Now, as we alluded to at the top of the show, the folks on our DTS subreddit laid into this. Comments were on the order of, did someone ask for this or needs blockchain? A simple boo and I want off this ride. So when is this just because it's Microsoft or is it negativity towards chatbots in general that makes people hate? Huyen Tue Dao I really do feel like this is just chatbots and people feeling like someone is trying to make their TV a Swiss army knife of things. And so to be totally fair, ([Time 0:04:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b28838b8-8f0f-4227-961e-546c9886e9c2)) - **Developer's Old Hope Meets Present AI Fatigue** - Huyen reflects on prior enthusiasm for machine learning to surface user habits and content. - She observes current AI features often underdeliver or hallucinate, feeding user distrust and fatigue. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao I really do feel like this is just chatbots and people feeling like someone is trying to make their TV a Swiss army knife of things. And so to be totally fair, there's a lot of things that I think are compelling about some of the functionality. But this feels like a very common thing, not just with AI, but with tech in general, where, I don't know, someone sees an opportunity to make X the new place you do Y. And it's been like that forever. And unfortunately, the big X that we're trying to put in everybody's why that sounds inappropriate is ai and so i think we kind of take like a general situation we find in tech often we Insert ai and so there's just probably more negativity than than on average but i will say okay so there's some good things here right i could see using wait click to search i saw i read I immediately i thought first it's circle to search but this there's something that are interesting and it actually brings up something that I thought where, you know, about five or Six years ago, as a developer, I actually was quite excited about having machine learning for things like understanding a user's habits, understanding things that they like, content, You know, what it was like surfacing things for people easier. And we were training models and all that sounded great. And I'm trying to like introspect to myself. ([Time 0:05:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/486e8ba4-dfdf-4591-9d79-a85f479fb2da)) - **Useful Niche Features Could Win Users** - Click-to-search and contextual actor/info lookups are practical TV use cases that reduce phone searches. - Useful features may emerge from experimentation despite broad skepticism about AI on TVs. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao Stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, click to search actually would be really handy. We recently watched a video, as my husband and I go to Japan a lot. We both speak some Japanese and are language learners. And we watched some random YouTube video where a guy was eating lunch on a beach near a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. And we're like, oh, my God, we have to go there. And so without, I mean, and to give this credence, without click to search, we were doing like forensic Googling where we were pulling up maps of the general area, looking at the topography, Like the surrounding landscape and then looking at Google Maps. So I think that process would have been faster with click to search. And it makes sense also for advertising and stuff. Could you imagine seeing your favorite actor wearing something, something and you click on it? I mean, it just it just seems like from all perspective it's a it's a really rich opportunity it's just yeah it's like right now it's literally the the darts thrown at the wall except that Your tv's on the wall and the darts are ai things i will say though that whoever first created clippy i hope that they feel validated that at least the company is to come back around again On digital assistance of some non-human. Tom Merritt Even Clippy's had a little bit of a rejuvenation. Like, you know, there's such a humor about it. So yeah, there is no cost to this. Microsoft's not charging you. Samsung's not charging you. You don't have to log in. So there's nothing that says you have to share your data with them. Obviously, these TVs collect a lot of data. So you may just want to unplug it from the internet and not use this, which you can do. So most of the control is in your hands here. And I understand why people might not want to use it. But yeah, I like the idea at a low enough cost to be able to say, like you're saying, is that Reocon? And have it be able to accurately respond. ([Time 0:09:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77f7707f-f9d6-4e43-8ef9-ba7ca8163aca)) - **From YouTube Clip To Travel Obsession** - Huyen describes hunting down a Ryokan location from a YouTube clip using forensic Googling. - She suggests click-to-search on TV would have sped up that real-world trip planning process. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao We recently watched a video, as my husband and I go to Japan a lot. We both speak some Japanese and are language learners. And we watched some random YouTube video where a guy was eating lunch on a beach near a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. And we're like, oh, my God, we have to go there. And so without, I mean, and to give this credence, without click to search, we were doing like forensic Googling where we were pulling up maps of the general area, looking at the topography, Like the surrounding landscape and then looking at Google Maps. So I think that process would have been faster with click to search. ([Time 0:09:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c5b5f3ab-a530-457c-96bf-20a68436f379)) - **Opt Out To Protect Privacy** - You can opt out of Copilot by not signing in and disconnecting your TV from the internet. - If privacy matters, unplug the TV or avoid logging into the Copilot app to limit data sharing. Transcript: Tom Merritt Microsoft's not charging you. Samsung's not charging you. You don't have to log in. So there's nothing that says you have to share your data with them. Obviously, these TVs collect a lot of data. So you may just want to unplug it from the internet and not use this, which you can do. ([Time 0:10:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6b2c6998-8e9c-4a13-8d9a-a1e2363686da)) - **NVIDIA Growth Is Strong But Mixed** - NVIDIA's revenue grew strongly but data center sales missed estimates, raising concerns about that growth vector. - The company still shows broad strength in gaming and robotics despite China export complexities. Transcript: Tom Merritt Good stuff. And the fact that you don't have to take the windscreen and the mount off to recharge. I mean, it seems silly, but that seems like the most revolutionary part of this for me. Huyen Tue Dao I love this. And I have to admit, I get why they're taking away the three and a half millimeter mic port. And it just feels like, man, I feel like if I see a YouTuber these days, everyone, especially anyone doing content is always holding a wireless mic. Yeah. And I suppose it's 60% chance it's DJI, 40% that it's Rode. So this really does seem like DJI is leaning in. You know what I mean? Like, and I love that. I mean, I am sad because I am a person that when I was recording video really liked using my own mic. So sad on me, but it makes a lot of sense. And wow, this is good on you, DJI. Yeah. Tom Merritt And it's only like, you know, $10 for a Sharpie to color out that DJI. NVIDIA issued a disappointing earnings report that beat expectations for earnings and revenue and issued estimates higher than expected for next quarter. So you might go, wait, what? Why is that disappointing? That sounded good to me. It's because data center revenue fell short of estimates for the second straight quarter. And everybody thinks data center is the growth area for NVIDIA. Overall, company revenue rose 56% on the year. That's the ninth straight quarter of yearly growth over 50%. It sold no H20 chips to China last quarter, so it still made that revenue without the Chinese market, though it did sell some H20s outside of China. ([Time 0:16:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/60dc96e3-4a62-4fb3-ad06-32f53dcf2c92)) - **Apple Blocks Torrent App On Alt Store** - Apple revoked distribution rights for a torrent client on an EU alternative app store without explanation. - This shows Apple can and will block apps distributed through third-party channels using developer account controls. Transcript: Tom Merritt Yeah. Reviews are all super positive for this. Now, though, that you said I'm not calling it fat, it made me think of Cardi B. Have you seen that yet? Huyen Tue Dao Not yet. Tom Merritt She's like on the witness stand. Like, did you call her fat? She's like, no, I called her the B word. Excellent. I didn't, sorry. I'm not calling the honor magic the b-word either i wonder which is wetter well i'll think about it unless you know honor magic b uh apple has revoked distribution rights for the i torrent Client uh which is distributed through the alt store pal uh third party app store in the. ([Time 0:20:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b496cd7-1f55-4296-bd3c-14989728720b)) - **Export Typepad Content Now** - Typepad customers must export content before September 30th to preserve blogs. - Use the Movable Type import format to migrate content into platforms like WordPress. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao The company, which launched in October 2003, stopped accepting new customers in 2020, but continued to support existing customers. That support ends September 30th. Existing customers must export their content by then. You can do that in movable type import format, which is compatible with WordPress. I went and checked. ([Time 0:25:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fdc0ff5c-82c7-4d67-8bae-296a05f74702)) - **Meta Buys Emotionally Expressive Voice Tech** - Meta acquired Waveforms AI to add emotional nuance and emotion-reading to voice models. - The tech aims to make AI voices more human and expressive for avatars, dubs, and assistants. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao All right, well, Meta is doubling down on voice and they just bought a startup that brings emotional nuance to speech. Andy Beach has a story. Tom Merritt Andy, thanks again for joining us. Hey, Tom, good to see you again. So this is Meta, a.k the folks who brought us the Metaverse or will someday. They're really doing a lot to try to position themselves back into this race, right? They have a lot of AI products. They have opened some of them. I hesitate to say open source because there's some limits to how they're open, but they're opening things. So they really are trying to be scrappy. What is the acquisition of waveforms AI do for them? Andy Beach Yeah. So this is a kind of interesting AI space, I think, right now. I think there's a lot of people that are really focusing now on what audio can do with AI. And this is this whole world. So Meta has acquired Waveforms AI. It's a small but incredibly well-funded, in part because of who the co-founders are, startup. It's specializing in the AI voice model capability. But their hook is the ability to really get expressive emotion out of the model. This is a big complaint that I have heard a lot from, particularly like studios, where they want to use voice models, but there's no way for them to sort of direct the model to act the way That a voice actor could to get different ranges of emotion. So you're sort of stuck with what you've got, or you have to find ways to jump around it. So co-founder Alexis Kanu, who is previously from Meta and OpenAI. Ah, I see. Tom Merritt Okay. Andy Beach Hence the well-funded part, I think, believes that they have a way to have a more human-like conversation with AI assistants. ([Time 0:26:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e4254b0a-8304-42b6-89e1-790e3d3eeb2e)) - **Emotion Adds Practicality To Voice Models** - Emotion-aware voice models can both emulate and read user emotion to adapt responses. - That capability could improve AI assistants, localization dubs, and VR/Metaverse avatars across Meta's products. Transcript: Andy Beach So it's not even necessarily the studio model that I know wants it out there, but it's having an AI assistant potentially that seems to be like a more natural human language conversation, Including being able to not only emote back to you, but also read your emotions. So if you're, if you sound harsh, it may understand that and may be able to adapt to that. Yeah. Tom Merritt Especially for voice acting kind of situations, uh, that would be important. I think you'd be forgiven for saying, well, I don't know. I've played with chat GPT's advanced voice. It's pretty emotional, but it's also a little bit on rails, right? Like it is always the same kind of emotional reaction, right? It's a very cheery disposition most of the time, honestly. Andy Beach Yeah. And that was the problem when we talked to people who were looking for sort of AI powered voiceover and localization, they were losing the nuance of the actor's capability in the process Of doing that virtual dub. And so if you can bring back in something that sort of reads emotion in it and can then relay that as part of either the dub in this case or even just interacting with someone, I think that's Going to go a long way towards expanding adoption of voice already. We have a lot of people that are doing voice work anyway using AI localization or AI assistance. I think this increases the desire and the people who would be willing to adopt it. Tom Merritt So what does this matter to Meta? Are they going to get into the business of selling this to the studios, which I presume they could, or is it more about their own products? Andy Beach I think it's a lot for them. ([Time 0:28:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ae63e48c-d26f-43e9-b601-879fe78f3d35)) - **Engagement Could Validate The Investment** - Higher-quality emotional voice models could increase engagement and adoption for AI-driven content. - Meta will likely measure success by longer viewer interactions and better engagement metrics. Transcript: Tom Merritt You've got someone who worked on OpenAI 4.0, you know, who has gone out and created this on their own. So there's a good chance that this is very good. But as we've seen with Apple and Siri, for example, something being very good doesn't mean that it continues to grow and become better over time, right? So that's one concern I have with meta. What are the other stumbling blocks? Andy Beach Well, I think you call it out there and it's one of these like proof is in the pudding sort of scenarios where it will absolutely have to prove itself. YouTube had a lot of backlash recently where there was low grade voice clones that were really just causing people to basically drop out of videos really, really quickly. And subsequently, it led to them changing the policies we talked about last month where they curb the monetization on what we now think of as AI slop. So if this has that higher quality voice characteristics that we're expecting, theory, then you should see longer engagements with AI voice cloned items, whether it's on an Instagram Story or somewhere in Facebook or even on WhatsApp. So if they're getting that higher engagement, that probably is one of the KPIs, one of the proof points that they're looking for that says that this was a good investment. ([Time 0:30:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6212d39e-557b-43ba-9439-6920c82b4bcf)) - **Build Guardrails For Expressive Voices** - Meta must implement guardrails to prevent misuse of expressive AI voices that can deceive listeners. - Prioritize safeguards and moderation to avoid reputational harm and malicious exploitation. Transcript: Andy Beach YouTube had a lot of backlash recently where there was low grade voice clones that were really just causing people to basically drop out of videos really, really quickly. And subsequently, it led to them changing the policies we talked about last month where they curb the monetization on what we now think of as AI slop. So if this has that higher quality voice characteristics that we're expecting, theory, then you should see longer engagements with AI voice cloned items, whether it's on an Instagram Story or somewhere in Facebook or even on WhatsApp. So if they're getting that higher engagement, that probably is one of the KPIs, one of the proof points that they're looking for that says that this was a good investment. Tom Merritt Of course, the dark side is always, it makes it another way to fool people until everyone catches on that AI voices can have emotions and react to your emotions. Andy Beach It will be one of those. And I would probably be more worried if it were still an independent company about someone being able to leverage it for bad acting. My hope is with Meta acquiring it, they will have to safeguard against this so that they don't take the reputation hit. ([Time 0:31:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5201d3f-377b-4314-95ed-0cd8ec0f2561))