this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
360 points (99.2% liked)

Technology

61227 readers
5931 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s
enu
technopagan
L4s
360
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 2 days 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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because very few people are ever going to turn an optional feature on, whether they would ultimately like it or not. They need to be shown it. If they hate it, they will turn it off.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

They can be offered to choose.

Opt-out is always bad because it is meant to exploit users who are not aware that a certain feature can be turned off. Even among those who do, not all are confidently going through settings.