https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/microsoft-shuts-down-windows-cortana-voice-assistant-as-it-chases-ai-ambitions/
Cortana will remain in Teams and Outlook, for now, but is going away in Windows.
I would use it if it was self hosted and separate from big tech, but using these services when big tech is watching, huge no.
When an individual builds something on the web, it's for the pleasure of building and seeing it being used by people.
When a corporation builds something, it's to exploit the user, lock them in, spy on them etc.
This is why Lemmy is such a breath of fresh air, in this web where corporations control all the big sites.
They literally all exist because of big tech. There's no point of a virtual assistant existing except to gather data.
There’s no point of a virtual assistant existing except to gather data.
Siri is one of the most-used virtual assistants and its purpose is not to gather data. It's a value-added service meant to sell more Apple hardware.
And yelling at Alexa to start laundry alarms, which tbh I'm on the fence of plugging her back in for (unless anyone's got any better recomendations)
I ask Siri to make phones calls and set a timer. I know these companies wanted us to use voice assistants more often but for me it was always faster to pick up my phone and do it myself. This reminds me of last year when articles were circulating about Amazons Alexa costing the company $3bn in the first quarter of 2022.
I tried using Bixby to set a calendar entry in 30 days and it spiraled into the question when the entry should be set. After 3 minutes trying everything I could think of (explicit date/time etc) I stopped and created the entry within seconds manually..
These assistants are interesting, when they work properly.. :/
Ok Google, set an alarm for X minutes, or take me home. Those are literally the only two commands I've ever used I think. When I first got the phone I may have asked it to call my contacts a handful of times.
Well assistant now has something stupid where "take me to" will open an app if it's the same or similar name to where you're going
On what dumb AI hellhole earth is "take me to" a substitute for open?
Yeah I've tried them but everything is easier to just do yourself. I also feel dumb half-yelling into the air and maybe having it registering that I'm talking to it.
It's very much Star Trek stuff, and until you can simply say "Computer, do X" in a normal room volume conversation tone it'll just be a novelty.
True that. I think it's also due to the wakeup command you constantly have to say before stating what needs to be done. "Ok Google", "Hey Bixby" etc aren't that natural as just speaking.
But having voice controlled assistants who constantly listen to what you're saying and act accordingly is another nightmare itself..
Cortana was pretty good at understanding me. Was much faster to use my voice than touch, for stuff like setting reminders and alarms. Or starting music (it understandably sucked at changing tracks, unless you had headphones).
I was excited for what else they would make it do. But it became clear MS only goal with it was to advertise stuff. And to US only. And when they failed that, they ripped out any useful features from it.
Yeah I tell Google Assistant "Wake me at 8:30AM" or "navigate to 123 Fake St" and it does a good job. I can also tell it "send email to myself" since I made an address book nickname in my own entry called "myself." Otherwise it never worked.
I mostly use Siri to send my wife texts while I'm driving. And it fucks up half the time.
Sad, with the emergence of GPT they should've find a way to combine it with GPT to actually have a smart assistant.
Depends what you mean by "smart assistant". Spew a bunch of trivia on a random subject? Sure. Understand your speech commands better? Maybe. Actually manage your stuff (meetings, reminders)? Nope.
ChatGPT is good at making up pieces of text that come very very close to what you wanted (more so in the spirit rather than the letter of it), but it's not very good at anything else.
ChatGPT has potential to create meeting invitations. I asked it:
Today is 2023-08-07. I’m in Tokyo. Draft a calendar invitation for coffee meeting at Starbucks in Shibuya during lunch time on Wednesday. Answer in ics format.
It answered:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ChatGPT//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Coffee Meeting at Starbucks Shibuya
LOCATION:Starbucks Shibuya, Tokyo
DTSTART:20230809T120000
DTEND:20230809T130000
DESCRIPTION:Let's meet up for a coffee and chat at Starbucks in Shibuya during lunchtime.
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
Requires a bit of prompt engineering to make it work, but this can probably be improved with some fine tuning. All you need is something that detects and parses ics invitation in the output.
Sure it can output .ics but the question is, would you trust it to manage your calendar? To get every single meeting right?
Software at its core is a precision tool. When it goes wrong it was either made wrong or you used it wrong. But ML introduces another layer for which the software maker doesn't want to take responsability, and you the user have no idea if you're using it right. When it fails there's "nobody to blame" yet you're the one left holding the bag.
With fundamentally flawed software like this (ambiguous by design) it's fun to play (especially if it seems to make sense 80-90% of the time), but it really sucks to have to depend on it for actually important stuff.
Depends what you mean by "smart assistant". Spew a bunch of trivia on a random subject? Sure. Understand your speech commands better? Maybe. Actually manage your stuff (meetings, reminders)? Nope.
Give you a big juicy fart? Definitely
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/4yEVo9UQ168
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Ms already pushing copilot in office and windows. I think, using an old branding with questionable reputation (Cortana) would be a bad move for them.
They simply start from scratch using all "new MS" branding and wording.
There are a lot of people who would be excited for something like this.
It's just that, people who focus more on privacy tend to avoid such products, and even whole companies like microshaft.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Microsoft is working to cram its new ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat service into every product it makes, and starting this fall it will be a built-in feature of Windows 11.
Microsoft has been pulling back on its support for Cortana for years, ending support for the iOS and Android versions in early 2021 and removing it from the Windows taskbar in Windows 11 a few months later.
Before that, Microsoft had already removed most third-party app integrations, refocusing the assistant entirely on basic productivity tasks and Bing searches.
Cortana began life on Microsoft’s ill-fated Windows Phone platform in the early 2010s, where it served the same general function as Apple’s Siri and Google Now (and, later, the Google Assistant): a hands-free way to interact with your phone that also attempted to predict what you'd need next, all filtered through a "cute" "personality."
By 2019, the voice assistant was already being gradually deprioritized in new Windows 10 builds.
Before too long, it may only be possible to hear Cortana in its original form: as an AI helper in the Halo franchise.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good, I never used the thing any way. I didn't mind the feature existing, I just wish they wouldn't keep trying to ram it down our throats. Now they're trying the same with Bing AI, another neat thing I'll likely never use.
As a Halo fan, it's heartbreaking to see how Microsoft wanted to embrace the Halo universe and its obvious there was genuine passion to do this in the lead-up to Halo Infinite, and here we are now with Halo on life support and Cortana completely forgotten about.
If they don't rebrand their AI as Clippy2.0 I literally don't know why their marketing team deserves a paycheque.
I was excited when voice assistants first came out. Siri, cortana, google assistant. More than 10 years later and the technology just completely sucks. Even the simplest thing of trying to set a quick reminder on my phone is just quicker by doing it manually.
Well tbh, Cortana was really behind Google Assistant and Siri and have mostly not been updated in a couple of years.
Glad to see it's being finally deprecated.
Cortana was so far ahead of the competition when it launched on Windows Phone and really useful. But they messed it up with Windows 10 Mobile and even more so on desktop Windows.