Elon Musk has described the new recall feature introduced by Microsoft as “a Black Mirror episode”.
Musk’s public condemnation of Microsoft’s recall feature is particularly significant in the context of ongoing data protection and security concerns surrounding the Copilot+ PC, which Microsoft launched to gain a foothold in the competitive market. artificial intelligence (AI) device market.
The Recall AI feature sequentially takes snapshots of the user’s screen content to build a library to enhance AI responses. This is then sent to the Recall app, which uses these collected contents to piece together answers to the user’s AI questions.
The Recall feature has received some criticism, due to the nature of the content it stores and the security permissions it requires regarding the protection of personal data.
Musk calls the recall a Black Mirror episode
The owner of social platform X referenced the dark humour and dystopian tone of Charlie Brooker’s popular Netflix series while taking a dig at Microsoft:
This is a Black Mirror episode.
This “feature” will definitely be discontinued. https://t.co/bx1KLqLf67
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2024
“This ‘feature’ will definitely be discontinued,” he concluded.
Musk’s public criticism is in line with concerns about the recall feature. Co-Pilot+ PCInformation Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of the United Kingdom Questions have been raised about the safeguards in place for recalls in relation to personal data protectionThe British government’s data watchdog has now contacted Microsoft for comment.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, told “You have to put two things together. It’s my computer. It’s my recall, and it’s all being done locally,” Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal told the paper when asked if the feature was “creepy”.
However, the local nature of data encryption is not a complete protection, as personal data will not be hidden or have any permissions that could prevent screenshots from being taken, unless it is manually removed or prevented.
Microsoft published a security statement saying the recall “will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots that are stored on your device, particularly when sites don’t follow standard Internet protocols such as hiding password entries.”
Musk’s comments are not without bias, as billionaire Musk also has his own AI company. xAI has released Grok-1.5V, Musk’s first product in the AI market, which can understand documents, respond to prompts, and calculate real-world scenarios.
The Forbes rich list figure also spent a lot of money to prevent competitors from attracting high-value Tesla employees. AI Recruitment Sector, that “The talent war for AI is the craziest talent war I’ve ever seen!”
image: Ideogram,
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