If you can write and wish to use your own voice to say your own things, then Clippy, and its descendants Copilot et al, are simply insulting, intrusive, focus-breaking roadblocks to getting work done.
It’s one thing to have AI as an option you can go to if you so choose. It’s quite another to have it constantly shoved in your face, breaking your focus and generally getting in the way. Microsoft have finally convinced me to stop using Word this morning with the constant intrusion of Copilot. This is the spiritual descendant of the utterly detestable Clippy. Think yourself lucky if you never had your day wasted by that condescending piece of crap.
This morning I tried to turn off Copilot, without any success. The easy instructions don’t work. The help, as ever, is cryptic and entirely unhelpful. The button you’re supposed to be able to disable isn’t where it’s described as being. And yet, even without a button to mark its existence, Copilot remains, dogging everything I type. Another piece of anti-productive dross from Microsoft.
Well, I’ve had enough. Word is very familiar after more than 30 years of using it almost every day. Now I’m looking for a replacement. They’ve finally driven me away.
I’ve written a book in Apple’s Pages, so I know that works. Still, I’m not drawn to it. Scrivner is interesting, and is better than Word in some ways, but has multiple issues. LibreOffice is my next best hope, though I’ve half a mind to try writing straight into Affinity. It’s nice that there are options. Plus, I’ve always got writing things longhand to fall back on. That supposedly has advantages in the way your brain responds to writing physically rather than on a keyboard. I don’t know about the neuroscience, though it certainly feels like a different experience. I often write notes longhand, even though I also have many digital ones. Sometimes it’s just easier to think a problem through on paper.
Of course, this is only my experience. I’m sure Copilot has a purpose outside my use case. For creative work though? Not for me.
Quirkworthy 
Copilot is pretty atrocious and purely there for Microsoft to leech off of user activity by both constantly pushing other products and stealing your activity for their AI model training.
Unfortunately your average user is effectively unable to turn off, let alone remove, it. And future Windows versions are only going to get worse, to the point of some of the higher-ups musing about not actually directly selling software or an OS anymore. They’re hoping to eventually move to an always online, streaming service. ‘Cause apparently everything out there needs to be a subscription model that can be turned off at any moment now…….
It’s reached the point where these companies think they have made their consumer base dependent enough on their services that they can push and charge whatever they want. All the big ones are moving there, while alternatives like Linux have a reputation of being difficult or unwieldy to use. What’s your average consumer going to do, go back to pre-smart phone or PC days? Of course not, we’re addicted already.
I want AI for things like early breast cancer detection, medical metadata analysis or as an assistance tool for the visually impaired. Not as something RandoUser34625 uses to “make” GIFs of dancing dogs or revenge porn after social media AI/algorithms led him to the man-o-sphere………..yet here we are. 😉
On the plus side LiberOffice is quite good and a lot smoother / responsive than Office these days. There is the odd issue with layout compatibility when importing Word documents and templates, but most of that is minor. Another option could be OpenOffice. Neither have all the functionality of Office, which your average user does not use anyway, but they are more stable and run perfectly fine on other OS.
LO really has big issues with text layout and never ever use it as a replacement for Excel… that thing is worse than the Pentium Division Error.
Jake, Jake, Jake. Don’t hold back man, tell us how you REALLY feel. 😉
I haven’t used Libre/Open Office in a while, but I drifted away when it consistently told me I had misspelled words that were not, in fact, misspelled. That was years ago though so I can only hope it has breached that obsticle.
You didn’t mention Google. It doesn’t have near as many bell and whistles, but I have never been assaulted by AI when using it.
Good luck in your hunt my friend and get better soon!
Google hides and moves a lot of the tools and it virtually leeches everything you write… LO is better than OO, but it seems the developers are more interested in feuds rather then improving the code.
Office can get rid of most of Copilot, but it is a little bit hidden and British computer press is no big help it seems. Ican look for an article in the German press. Apple is the next best, and then it gets to medium and worse. OO and similar lack too much and some other software is Chinese spy software.
Thanks guys.
I’ve been writing recent posts in LibreOffice, and it seems fine. A few interesting differences between the design choices in that and Office, but nothing alarming. So far, it does what I need it to.
And I’m sorry for holding back, Golden.