This is funny because everyone’s AI strategy should have been
“What do we actually need to be productive?”
Which is how Anthropic pulled ahead of Microsoft, that prioritized
checks notes
Taking screenshots of every windows user’s desktop every few seconds. For productivity.
Fun fact: I used to automatically screenshot my desktop every few minutes eons ago. This would occasionally save me when I lost some work and could go back to check the screenshots.
I only gave it up because it felt like a liability and, ahem, it was awkward to review screenshots and delete inopportune ones.
Long time ago I had a script that would regularly screenshot my desktop… and display the latest screenshot on a page in my `public_html`, on the public web. Just because I thought it would be fun.
You were a brave, brave person!
Recall actually sounds like it could be useful but there's a snowball's chance in hell that I would trust Microsoft to not spy on me.
On the contrary, you could trust it 100% to spy on you. That's the whole reason that functionality exists.
Always trust people. Trust people to be themselves.
For some reason, people have great cognitive difficulty with defensive trust. Charlie Brown, Sally.
I don’t plan on using the feature and I don’t plan on using Windows much longer in the first place, but I find that going beyond the ragebait headlines and looking at the actual offering and its privacy policy and security documentation makes it look a lot more reasonable.
Microsoft is very explicit in detailing how the data stays on device and goes to great lengths to detail exactly how it works to keep data private, as well as having a lot of sensible exceptions (e.g., disabled for incognito web browsing sessions) and a high degree of control (users can disable it per app).
On top of all this it’s 100% optional and all of Microsoft’s AI features have global on/off switches.
Until those switches come in the crosshairs of someone's KPIs, and then magically they get flipped in whatever direction makes the engagement line go up. Unfortunately we live in a world where all of these companies have done this exact thing, over and over again. These headlines aren't ragebait, they're prescient.
Well, now you’re just doing the same exact thing I described. You’re basically making up hypothetical things that could happen in the future.
I’ll agree with you the moment Microsoft does that. But they haven’t done it. And again, I’m not their champion, I’m actively migrating away from Microsoft products. I just don’t think this type of philosophy is helpful. It’s basically cynicism for cynicism’s sake.
Here are the settlements from Apple and Google regarding “how phones totally aren’t listening to you and selling the data to advertisers”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-voice-assistant-lawsuit-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lopez-voice-assistant-payout-se...
1. Not related to the issue at hand, a completely different system implemented in a completely different way.
2. Settlements are just that: settlements. You can be sued frivolously and still decide to settle because it’s cheaper/less risky.
1. Any kernel level vulnerability nullify any formal protections Microsoft guarantees as the first party
https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/crowdstrik...
2. Settlements also avoid discovery because the impact is likely way worse than checks notes less than one day of profits per company, respectively.
1. More irrelevant stuff. A kernel level vulnerability can nullify all sorts of good faith security design.
2. I could sue you today for, well, pretty much anything. I don’t have a good case but I can file that lawsuit right now. Would you rather take my settlement offer of $50 or pay a lawyer to go to trial and potentially spend the next months/years of your life in court? You can’t make a blanket statement to say that every company that decides to settle has something to hide, or, similarly, that everyone who exercises their 4th amendment rights has something to hide. I will also point out that companies that make lots of money are huge lawsuit targets, e.g., patent trolls sue large corporations all the time.
Don’t forget we are here talking about a fully optional feature that isn’t even turned on by default. I’m not telling you to love Windows Recall, turn it off or switch to Linux if you don’t love it. My only point is that it’s gotten a lot of incorrect news and social media coverage that is factually untrue and designed to get clicks and reinforce feelings.
1. Most people don’t realize kernel hacks undermine their entire mental model of security— tbh, only after crowdstrike did I learn it was possible to mass blue screen a population by a security vendor
2. I’m very much already on Linux, most of my threat model is: “if it’s technically possible, it’s probable” and I adjust my technology choices accordingly
I’m just saying a max cap of $60 for Apple’s settlement sets precedence for future mass surveillance wrist slaps and maybe it would be worth the discovery process to uncover the actual global impact
Anthropic has a model. Microsoft doesn't.
Microsoft can use OpenAI models but it's not the model that's the problem, it's the application of them. Anthropic simply knows how to execute better.
Anthropic's Models are better though. It may not "perform" as well on the LLM task benchmarks, but its the only one that actual gives semi-intelligent responses and seems aligned with human wants. And yes, they definitely have much better execution. It's the only one I considered shelling out 20 bucks for.
GPT 5.2 Codex is often better and more thorough than Opus 4.5, it's just slower.
they should just acquire one of the many agent code harnesses. Something like opencode works just as well as claude-code and has only been around half of the time.
I used opencode happily for a while before switching to copilot cli. Been a minute , but I don't detect a major quality difference since they added Plan mode. Seems pretty solid, and first party if that matters to your org.
As evidenced by Anthropic models not performing well in github presents copilot.
I read that a few times but from my personal observations, Claude Opus 4.5 is not significantly different in GitHub Copilot. The maximum context size is smaller for sure, but I don’t think the model remembers that well when the context is huge.
Microsoft has a model nearly as old as the company.
Attempt to build a product... Fail.
Buy someone else's product/steal someone else's product... Succeed.
We love to hate on Microsoft here, but the fact is they are one of the most diversified tech companies out there. I would say they are probably the most diversified, actually. Operating systems, dev tools, business applications, cloud, consumer apps, SaaS, gaming, hardware. They are everywhere in the stack.
That's a "business" model, not a language model, which I believe is what the poster is referring to. In any case though, MS does have a number of models, most notably Phi. I don't think anyone is using them for significant work though.
It's a word play, if their LLM model sucks too much they'll get someone else's.
I mean they fought the browser war for years, then just used Chrome.
Which is kind of a bummer - it'd have helped the standards based web to have an actual powerful entity maintain a distinct implementation. Firefox is on life-support and is basically taking code from Blink wholesale, and Webkit isn't really interested in making a browser thats particularly compliant to web standards.
MS's calculus was obvious - why spend insane amounts of engineering effort to make a browser engine that nobody uses - which is too bad, because if I remember correctly they were not too far behind Chrome in either perf or compatibility for a while.
It would have helped the standards based web, if the standards based web wasn't a fermenting spaghetti monster.
From what I've heard a W3C standards meeting is basically a Zoom call between Blink and Webkit engineers.
Well, they fought hard until IE6.
Then they took their eyes off the ball - whether it was protecting the Windows fort (why create an app that has all the functionality of an OS that you give away for free - mostly on Windows, some Mac versions, but no Linux support) when people are paying for Windows OR they just diverted the IE devs to some other "hot" product, browser progress stagnated, even with XMLHttpRequest.
They do have some in-house LLM's (Phi) but they seem to either have issues with, or not thinking it's worth it, to develop large flagship ones.
One has existed since the 80s, when was the other founded?
What does it matter? And Microsoft was founded in the 70s..
I think they're implying Microsoft is having a Kodak moment
A large language model, or a business model?
Recall is great for bashing but relatively inconsequential to anything Microsoft has been doing in this space outside that.
Although it seems in Europe we might all end up with recall style screenshots and scanning of what we're looking at.
Part of me wonders if Microsoft knew it would appeal to governments.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/uk-to-encourage-...
I mean. Ask any gamer if the original Xbox One announcement needing a Kinect and persistent internet connection was a feature request from them or a three letter org.
As someone that was there, we saved the Xbox brand by bullying Microsoft out of normalizing spying on kids and their whole families.
You were robbed last night. No way Jelly Roll should have won.
I love you for this reference lol
I hate how I’ve had a web site with my name on it since 2008 and when you google my name verbatim it says “did you mean Tyler Childers”
Such shade from the algorithm, I get it, I get it, software is lamer than music.