Elon Musk says Microsoft Recall is a Black Mirror episode

Elon Musk has labeled the new Recall feature unveiled by Microsoft “a black mirror episode.”

Musk’s public rebuke of Microsoft’s Recall feature is particularly significant in the context of the ongoing data security and safety concerns surrounding Copilot+ PCs, which Microsoft launched to establish a foothold in the competitive artificial intelligence (AI) device market.

The Recall AI feature progressively takes snapshots of the user’s screen content to create a library to enhance AI responses. This is then sent to the Recall App, which uses these gathered contents to piece together the answers to a user’s AI queries.

The Recall feature has come under some criticism due to the nature of the content it can store and the security permissions around the safety of personal data.

The owner of social platform X, referenced the dark humor and dystopian tone of Charlie Brooker’s popular Netflix series as a jibe toward Microsoft on X:

This is a Black Mirror episode.

Definitely turning this “feature” off. https://t.co/bx1KLqLf67

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2024

He concluded with, “Definitely turning this ‘feature’ off.”

Musk’s public criticism strikes a chord with concerns about the Recall feature of Copilot+ PCs. The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has raised questions about the safeguards in place for Recall regarding personal data security. The British government’s data watchdog has now approached Microsoft for comment.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, told the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern when asked about the feature being ‘creepy’, that “You have to put two things together. This is my computer. This is my Recall, and it’s all being done locally.”

However, the local nature of the data encryption is not a complete safeguard, as personal data will not be hidden or have any permissions that can prevent screenshots from being taken unless it is removed or paused manually.

Microsoft published a security statement saying Recall “will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots that are stored on your device, especially when sites do not follow standard internet protocols like cloaking password entry.”

Musk’s comments aren’t without bias, as the billionaire has his own AI company. xAI has released Grok -1.5V, Musk’s very own entry into the AI market that can understand documents, respond to prompts, and compute real-world scenarios.

The man on the Forbes Rich List also spent a pretty penny on keeping competitors from poaching highly valued Tesla staff. He said of the AI recruitment sector, that “The talent war for AI is the craziest talent war I’ve ever seen!”

Image: Ideogram.

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