11mo ago

AI Has Come for Sweet, Innocent Notepad

gizmodo.com AI Has Come for Sweet, Innocent Notepad

Notepad is getting AI features that Microsoft claims will help you improve your writing.

74 comments

Notepad++
- More like Notepad--, amirite
  
  Dunno if I'm misunderstanding you or you're misunderstanding the person you replied to, but Notepad++ is a third party program unaffiliated with windows or notepad. It's also an astronomical step up from notepad and it's free and has optional plugins and whatnot.

Oh my God, AI and a subscription model. Kill me now.
- Of course subscription
  Didn't you know that AI can only run on servers?
  /S, of course

Well that's weird, because I didn't need AI to improve my writing.
All it took was one very good and very short book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style
I don't agree with everything in it, but I agree with most of it.
- Personally I don't use Notepad for writing writing. Its a functional writing app. A app for copying and pasting code, or making a list, or crude ascii art. If I need to bold something, or do text formatting, thats when I open up the several orders of magnitude larger office apps.
  
  That's another issue, but I agree. I was just addressing the idea that this is what people need to help them be better writers.
  All this will do is to teach them how to better write specific sentences. If they even read the suggestion before using it.
- Yeah. I hate reading "essays" generated by an AI.
  Keep it short for better reader experience.
  
  Everytime I see a commercial where someone uses AI to make something larger and embellish and such, I think of the other commercials where people use the same AI to summarize it for them.
  
  There's a place for more formal writing.
  But the point of using precise, formal language is the intent behind it. If you're just RNG-ing it it loses all meaning.
- Exactly. I write well enough. I only use AI if I'm just stuck for words and want to get a suggestion. Sometimes it's good enough, sometimes it's way off base, but was enough kick to get things going in my brain.
  I'd appreciate some added AI to give suggestions occasionally, but it needs to be implemented well. I hate when Word tells me to phrase something differently as if it 100% correct. No, I worded it that way because that's how I want to say it.
  The real damage will be when everybody starts sounding alike because there are defined acceptable ways to say things.

It assists with refining your writing by rephrasing your sentences, modifying your tone, and tweaking the length of your text based on your preferences.
I don't remember when was the last time I wrote a full sentence in Notepad yet alone needed an Ai redaction. Because it's a fucking notepad! It's for writing notes not essays!

That's stupid, notepad is meant to be simple....

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
or
https://www.textpad.com/home
- I love notepad++, but to me, both have different uses. Notepad is like my basic sticky pad just to copy-paste basic stuff to it and come back to reference throughout the day. Also, notepad opens instantly and everything else is slightly slower. It's just the reason why I like it more. Notepad++ is for editing and manipulating data for me.
  
  One of the uses of notepad was also that it's installed by default, and was a place you could be assured wouldn't mess with your text. No formatting, no weird characters you didn't ask for.
  Notepad++ is great, but you can't be assured it's installed on any arbitrary Windows machine.
  
  I totally get that.
  Check out Textpad. You might like it. The only nuisance with it is the default config settings are a little oddball (things like keyboard shortcuts, etc). But it's highly configurable so you can set it up the way you like and then it's good. It has more features than Notepad, but it's still pretty simple and can do cool things like search files / folders for strings, has regex support, etc. But the extras stay out of your way and it's pretty clean and simple for "notepad-like" usage.
- https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3
  and honorary mention
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metapad
- Or for the masochistic windows user in your life:
  https://www.vim.org/
  
  I'm not convinced anyone actually likes vim. They are just use it to be edgy.
- *Linux mint text editor

The fuck? This must be on Win 11. My Notepad still has to be told whether to search Down or Up, just like in 1990.
- As it ahould be!

First, they came for Wordpad, and I did not speak out--because I did not use Wordpad...

Recently, another innocent app, Notepad, also got some AI features.
Dude, you just talked about Notepad. You are thinking of Microsoft Paint. Your article needs to be proofread.
- Almost like an AI wrote it
  
  Oh yes, I write my articles in notepad, how did you know?

Enshitification will continue until moral improves.

Notepad++ ftw
- Notepad# when?
  
  That's what the article is about

Why are they adding this to Notepad rather than Word?
- I'd guess the codebase that keeps Word running is so convoluted by now they have trouble shoehorning it in.
- Enterprise would riot if they did.
  They might do it later, but as it stands, this isn't the old notepad, and gets used by a good bit more than just Enterprise users, so they can stick their AI into it.
  
  What are you talking about?

Nobody uses notepad the way Microsoft thinks people use notepad.

Classic windows L. Come to the light side come to the linux master race.

That’s LLM bullshit, sir.
- Imitation Intelligence, captain.

This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of notepad . . and will soon see the end of text entry itself.
ohhshh . . pahhhh*

Oh god not Notepad!

Is this so a user is assisted with AI or is it more that it’s yet another vector for Microsoft to be gathering more training data?
- Why not both?!

Please put AI in my toilet too. Please I am begging.
- you are joking but I am sure that will come too, toilet AI doing health checks based on the color and consistency of your poo
  
  And the collected data will be sold to every type of insurance provider you have.
  
  health checks based on the color and consistency of your poo
  That's already a thing. I am talking about LLM in Toilet LOL.
- I've heard of Mench on a Bench but never Robotty on the Potty

AI will never come for vim!
- https://github.com/madox2/vim-ai

Forgetting about the intrusion of shitty LLMs everywhere for a while... Who the fuck even uses notepad for something they would need redacted?
It's not a actual writing tool, it's a basic text file editor.
- And a formatting-stripping tool
  
  used to be. doesnt work like it used to now.

Who cares, life was never the same after Wordpad passed away.
- you don't understand, we want to use Linux or use it in lemmy.

Well the headline got a chuckle out of me anyway. Still happy with Neon and it's lack of AI bullshit.

As if the new notepad wasn't already enough of a downgrade.

Why, yes, I believe I will gladly pay for your AI Notepad bullshit, Microsoft! Sign me right the fuck up.

well cause the more software that has AI the more ways Microsoft has of collecting very personal data from you without your conscious content. They will likely be privy to whatever you write there even if you don't really use the AI feature.

74 comments