Summary: So-called 'news' so-called 'reporting' (see the above from Reuters, with "focus on profits after layoffs; companies to highlight AI") will be used to disguise or distract from what's actually happening; it's already starting on the wrong foot for Microsoft, so it wants everyone to believe the future is glamorous and all about "HEY HI" (AI); they keep making puff pieces about an "HEY HI" arms race (miraculously Microsoft is already the self-professed "market leader" owing to paid-for hype campaigns) and other such nonsense, looking for additional bailouts and asking shareholders for patience

With reports about Azure failing at RoI, citing typical "HEY HI" (AI) misdirection, we're meant to think everything will be rosy this week (see screenshot above; Microsoft is not "after layoffs", the layoffs are still ongoing and not stopping). Microsoft-connected publishers try to change the subject ("Microsoft-Activision Deal"), probably seeking distract from Microsoft layoffs ahead of disappointing quarterly "results". They basically quote a paid Microsoft lobbyist, Florian Mueller, who has a two-way conflict of interest (past employer).

"The chaffbot isn't working and it won't improve."24 minutes ago (as of the time of writing) the Microsoft layoffs news is being buried by many mindless puff pieces (Microsoft is now buying lots of puff pieces as it desperately needs another very thick smokescreen for the week). We could provide examples (dated today), but it would send traffic to spammy junk.

As a Techrights associate put it some minutes ago, "the whole chaffbot circus is a way of turning unsold Azure hours into marketing. Notice that virtually none of the chaffbot reviews cover the inaccuracy of the service's output. Though there are a few which label the chaffbot output as "hallucinations" but that gives the bot too much credit." To quote a Gemini blogger who wrote about it this morning, ChatGPT "is also entirely wrong . I told ChatGPT I'm not satisfied with its answer [read: ChatGPT was quite wrong], but it failed to come up with a different one, it just worded the same one differently." (It repeated the lie basically)

These are no "hallucinations". It's a misnomer. It is a euphemism. There are practical limitations. These are often mentioned in IRC. The chaffbot isn't working and it won't improve. In fact, there is no solution to it (like PR/hype, e.g. GPT-[num]=GPT-[num+1] where the quality barely improves, i.e. it's just quadratic growth in resources needed, i.e. cost).

"This isn't going to replace Google.""There are individual bloggers who take on the topic of how inaccurate the chaffbot are but not really any mainstream press," an associate says this morning. "Except for those few bloggers, it has become Knoll's Law on steroids. Or more specifically the Gell-Mann amnesia effect."

This isn't going to replace Google. Microsoft's "HEY HI" (AI) SPAM/chaff is so dead that even bribed media partners (Engadget et al) quit bothering. Meanwhile Bing continues falling towards 0% market share at an alarming pace, based on Web surveys from the past few months. Bing has many layoffs this year (media giants magically 'forgot' to report this^*) and is losing market share rapidly. Last week Microsoft had some foolish 'journalists' report that Samsung "considers" leaving Google Search. How much did Microsoft bribe/blackmail (with patent lawsuits) Samsung this time around? Also, did the journalists check it's not a PR stunt from Microsoft? No, they did not check. ⬆ _____ ^* The media barely mentioned any of these layoffs, especially after January. To give one example, not a single site focused on Open Source bothered to mention that GitHub has already had two waves of layoffs this year. It has no business model. Useful alternatives to Microsoft GitHub:

• GitLab
• Codeberg
• Gitea
• GNU Savannah
• GitBucket
• Gogs (self-hosting)
• Sourcehut