Colin’s Note: Artificial intelligence-powered PCs are set to be the AI devices of summer…
These new personal computers represent an important advancement in AI… but there’s a feature Microsoft announced it would be rolling out with its new PCs that’s causing a stir.
It’s called Microsoft Recall. It’s designed to record everything you do on your device – across all platforms – through screenshots that you can later use to help you find anything you’ve looked at on your device.
In theory, it’s a convenient way to sift through and “recall” your digital footprint. In practice, it’s raising questions about how far is too far when it comes to the intersection of AI-powered convenience and our digital privacy.
I get into it all in today’s issue. Just click below to watch…
There’s a feature Elon Musk says he’s definitely turning off on his next Windows PC.
What is it? How does it work? And what does this mean for the massive wave of AI-powered personal computers and laptops on the horizon?
What is going on, investors? Welcome back to The Bleeding Edge.
So artificial intelligence (AI) PCs and laptops are positioned to be one of the breakthrough AI devices of the summertime and help surge some familiar stocks even higher. Not only that, AI PCs will be an important aspect of the rapid advancement of AI.
One recurring theme here at the newsletter, as you’re probably well aware of by now, is the typical progression of technological advancements.
Historically, whether it’s been the personal computer, the internet, or the smartphone, these advancements follow a predictable pattern.
First, there’s a hardware phase where groundbreaking devices are introduced. Next, a software phase emerges, enhancing the new hardware and transforming it into an indispensable product.
Finally – much like the smartphone, the internet, and personal computer technology – you look around and it’s everywhere. It’s ubiquitous.
Hardware, software, everywhere. That’s the progression we’re on.
And when we look at the AI rollout so far, the hardware phase has largely been confined by Nvidia GPUs and data centers owned by the world’s largest companies.
While consumers like you and I have experimented with AI software like ChatGPT, the AI industry still lacks that revolutionary AI hardware device that consumers can buy. Now, that’s all about to change.
The highly anticipated iPhone coming this fall is rumored to have several AI features already available on competing Google and Samsung devices. But before that, we’ll experience an influx of AI PCs.
These new AI-powered personal computers and laptops are an important progression for Windows-powered PC devices. AI PCs will differ from the previous generations of Windows PCs in that they’ll require a neural processing unit (NPU).
An NPU is a dedicated processor on the device that helps run these computations for AI tasks. For years, Apple devices have had this neural engine as a standard feature on devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Macintosh computers.
Soon, every AI PC that runs on Windows will feature a neural processing unit to help run many of these new AI features. One of the features Microsoft is rolling out on these new AI PCs is a recall feature. Essentially, how it works is your computer will have a photographic memory of everything that you do. This would include every single website that you visit, file you download, and software application that you open up and use.
The system will constantly be taking screenshots of your activity and storing this information, more or less, on a localized database you can search through.
For example, say you’re scrolling through your social media feed and pause to look at a good-looking pasta recipe someone shared online.
Then weeks later, maybe you’ve got a family get-together or something. You’re about to prepare this meal and you want to recall that recipe, but you really can’t remember exactly where you saw it or who posted it online.
With Microsoft’s AI Recall, you could simply search for the word pasta, and the system is designed to recall and recognize all the screenshots you viewed on your PC that relate to pasta.
Now, ideally, you’ll be directed to the social media post you saw weeks earlier, giving you the ability to recall something you viewed on your PC in the past.
It’s easy to see how useful a feature like this can be. But it’s also easy to see how this could be a massive invasion of your privacy. That’s why, this week, Elon Musk said he would be definitely turning this feature off.
Now, it’s worth noting that this feature is designed to be run on the edge.
The edge is really just an industry term, meaning the software feature will be run on the device, the laptop, or the personal computer itself.
So, in other words, Microsoft Recall will store all the screenshots in the memory on the chip itself in the device. So, in theory, and this is just theory, none of your information will be passed through the cloud and would only be accessible if you have access to the device itself.
The problem is, that does very little to protect your information from falling into the wrong hands. Hackers could likely gain remote access to your computer, and at least in theory, run the Recall application in the background without you even knowing.
Then there’s law enforcement. There have been several high-profile cases where browser history and internet searches were used against somebody in the court of law.
In my mind, a feature like Microsoft Recall can cause way more trouble than good. I agree with Elon Musk. And if I were to use one of these PCs on a regular basis, I would want this feature to be disabled or turned off.
Despite the trouble this software could unlock for many people, AI PCs are a step in the right direction. They bring the battery life and performance Apple users have been enjoying for several years to the PC.
This should benefit familiar names in the PC world, including Dell, HP, Intel, AMD, many others.
But keep in mind, if you upgrade to these new PCs, there’ll be new features that you might want to think twice about using regularly. The Microsoft AI Recall feature is certainly one of them.
That was The Bleeding Edge for today. I’ll be back later this week. See you then.