Microsoft is soon implementing a new feature called Recall powered by Ai on their laptops part of CoPilot+, a new privacy nightmare.
While mankind are at the dawn of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) and rapid expansion into machine learning sometimes, large corporation push a little too far.
What seems like a good idea now can easily turn into an absolute privacy nightmare. Lets look at the latest innovation by Microsoft.
Introducing Microsoft’s CoPilot+ Ai with Recall
Not to be confused with CoPilot or Bing, this one boys and girls are geared towards their new notebooks and laptops.
What its created for is to take screenshots of your computer and how you use it every few seconds and store that in a local file (for now) to help train an Ai so that you, the user can then Recall past information and events based on this data.
Which seems like a good idea now is ultimately the worst case of spyware I have ever heard off. Viewing sensitive financial data, CoPilot+ will also see and record that.
Copilot+ is going to be watching your every move on your computer, whatever and when ever you do anything will be recorded.
While Microsoft claims that this collected data is going to be stored locally on the device, who’s to say that in the near future they (Microsoft) won’t change their minds and start uploading your recall data to the cloud where more ads and surveillance can take place.
We already see the noose tightening in recent Windows 11 updates released and with CoPilot being forced unto Windows 11 users. This new feature while it might seems like its a great tool will be like having a surveillance camera constantly trained on you, eyes on everything you do and able to be recalled at any time.
The Recall Feature
Recall is the feature that the user, meaning you will be able to use to essentially recall anything the Copilot Ai has captured. In Microsoft’s own words
We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we
Microsoft
have seen before on our PC
Now don’t get me wrong, Windows 10 even has a very simplistic feature in that is called task view.
Task View also remembers some of the activity you have done on your PC over a period of time, but it is in no way nearly as intrusive as this Ai model.
Recall overall seems like a pretty cool feature right. I can see it being useful but the drawbacks of it far outweighs the cool factor…
Cybersecurity Implications Recall might pose
While the Copilot+ Ai will, for now at least store all the data on your device you can be sure that hackers will go after this archive of data. If that information is every collected, stolen or reverse engineered your entire digital life will be compromised.
Remember that the Copilot Ai on Windows will now record EVERYTHING you do on your computer all of the time.
Whats the upside of Copilot+ and Recall
Workflow. While a lot of companies are going to take advantage of the new features like Adobe, DaVinci Resolve Studio and so on, I personally do not think that trading your privacy for better workflow will be worth it.
Programs for Creators and professionals will integrate better and overall become much more powerful, cutting down the time you spent to do something in the past.
What can we do to avoid this
If you are dependent on Microsoft and Windows then for now don’t buy a Laptop or computer that features Copilot+, While this is a short term solution to buy you time, ultimately the best thing you can do is stop to use Windows altogether.
The free world is moving to Linux slowly but surely, while corporations are hell bent on control and censorship, spying and invasive tactics Linux still offers a relatively capable alternative.
It is worth noting that Windows 11 won’t change overnight with implementing the Copilot+ feature as it will require the necessary hardware like a NPU or (Neural Processing Unit) as well.
You can expect that Laptop manufacturers will be the first to roll out some models with this new innovation but the future looks really bleak and controlled.
Conclusion
The world is rapidly changing with the dawn of artificial Inelegance with lots of new innovations.
However, we should not sacrifice our privacy for corporate greed by giving too much control away. For some of us this technology will work wonders. For others it will be the opposite. Its your responsibility to choose which moral principle you enforce.
We can only hope that this CoPilot Ai and it’s Recall feature will not become cloud base privacy or cybersecurity nightmare.
