“We set out to solve one of the most common frustrations we hear — finding and changing settings on your PC — using the power of AI agents,” Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows Experiences at Microsoft, said in a blog post on Tuesday. “An agent uses on-device AI to understand your intent and with your permission, automate and execute tasks.”
Looks like this isn’t ripe for abuse in any way…
sarcasmYou just know MS is going to find a way to abuse this ‘feature’ to change people’s settings behind their backs in any way they see fit.
This reeks of the type of malware that used to take complete control of your PC and change settings maliciously, and even delete important files or straight-up nuke your OS install in the worst-case scenario, but made ‘legitimate’ somehow. Yes, MS is really stooping that low to make one of the worst types of malware an actual OS feature.
I am pretty sure Microsoft doesn’t need an AI agent to access your settings.
However, that AI agent might be a new attack vector for someone else.
If this literal malware (I say that because again, what MS is proposing here is what some actual viruses used to do, typically to an even worse degree than simply changing settings) gets ported to the Enterprise/Education and IoT SKUs, the people who work on this stuff for a living at the local call center or public school district are going to have a nightmare on their hands.
I’d hope even if it exists on managed workstations, it wouldn’t be able to change settings that are managed by administrators… If it can, what the fuck.