this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Why is Big Tech hellbent on making AI opt-out? | As Microsoft, Apple, and Google switch the tech on by default, what happened to asking for permission first? (www.theregister.com)
submitted 1 day ago by ForgottenFlux to c/technology
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Last week, Copilot made an unsolicited appearance in Microsoft 365. This week, Apple turned on Apple Intelligence by default in its upcoming operating system releases. And it isn't easy to get through any of Google's services without stumbling over Gemini.

Regulators worldwide are keen to ensure that marketing and similar services are opt-in. When dark patterns are used to steer users in one direction or another, lawmakers pay close attention.

But, for some reason, forcing AI on customers is acceptable. Rather than asking "we're going to shovel a load of AI services into your apps that you never asked for, but our investors really need you to use, is this OK?" the assumption instead is that users will be delighted to see their formerly pristine applications cluttered with AI features.

Customers have not asked for any of this. There has been no clamoring for search summaries, no pent-up demand for the revival of a jumped-up Clippy. There is no desire to wreak further havoc on the environment to get an almost-correct recipe for tomato soup. And yet here we are, ready or not.

Without a choice to opt in, the beatings will continue until AI adoption improves or users find that pesky opt-out option.

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[–] orclev 32 points 1 day ago

Because they need a constant stream of data to feed the models. If people had to opt in then they'd be less likely to do so and the models would starve and become less accurate and therefore less valuable to sell. Remember the trained model is the valuable piece of the entire thing, that's what companies pay money to gain access to. There's no point in sitting on all that user data if they can't turn it into a marketable product by feeding it into a model.