Sometimes, the issue is certification, e.g. for aerospace and medical applications - although these systems tend to run on decades-old software anyway (since changes to the software also need to be certified, which rarely happens), so it’s not like this has an actual impact.
Decreasing friction is a problem though. In the past, you needed at least some basic skills to e.g. photoshop a compromising photo of someone (and quite a lot of experience to do so convincingly), whereas current AI tools can do this far better with no skills required.
A relative of mine switched to a BEV just a few months ago - KGM Torres EVX, a bargain from South Korea with 462 km (287 mi) WLTP range, which he regularly exceeds - after years of driving plug-in hybrids from Mitsubishi. He obviously could not be happier, given current gas prices (except that the driver’s seat holds up exactly as poorly as on the Mitsubishis). He does not have a wall box, by the way: All of his charging is done through public chargers and a slow wall outlet at work. At between €28 and 36 per full recharge, it’s a very cheap car to drive.
Even when he was driving his prior hybrids, he was barely ever using the internal combustion engine - to the point that the car would occasionally warn him to refresh the gas in the tank - since he was doing almost all of his driving in EV-mode.
They aren’t peddling their products exclusively in America though. I doubt EU customers, courts and regulatory agencies are oblivious to this change.
You are free to invent a better system. So far, nobody has.
This nonsense reminds me of how many phones in the olden days had a dedicated Internet/WAP button on them from the phone companies that primarily existed so that people would be charged for accidentally pressing it.
With this new iteration of the same idea (they could have easily chosen a spot where it would never get hit accidentally, but didn’t), I suspect that Microsoft banks on people accidentally pressing the button in the hopes that at least some will be converted to using their dubious “AI” assistant more than once. Like the author of the article, I have my doubts this will happen. On laptop keyboards in particular, it’ll be pressed when people are actually trying to hit the left arrow key and cause more annoyance and confusion than anything else. I can already imagine IT departments disabling these on all new devices just to save them the extra headache.
Maybe they should ask their AI for ideas on how to make money.
By the way: Why are AI companies still on a hiring spree while at the same time peddling AI as a replacement of high-skill white collar jobs, like software engineering?