Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Cortana Doesn't Put Up With Sexual Harassment (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Not long after Apple unveiled its Siri personal assistant to the world, it took very little time before people began asking her outrageous questions, sometimes inappropriate or just humorous, if for no other reason than they just could. When creating Cortana, Microsoft was well-aware of what its digital assistant was going to have to deal with, so, believe it or not, it was designed in such a way to handle abuse in a specific manner. According to Microsoft's Deborah Harrison, who is one of eight writers for Cortana, a chunk of the earliest queries were about Cortana's sex life. A specific goal was to make sure Cortana wasn't treated as a subservient. If she's insulted, she doesn't apologize or back down. She handles it with tact, so as to reduce the chance of further abuse.
I can't wait for the first case of sexual assault of an "AI." Will this get me fired from my job?
We're talking to a fucking machine. There shouldn't be any sexual harassment when talking to a machine.. It's not like you're actually calling a person and asking them about their sex life.
The damn thing better be subservient. It's my phone and I can abuse it if I want to. Honestly I can't see myself propositioning my phone but the first time the thing comes back at me with a put down it's not long for this world. As an aside I remember a guy that came into my shop TDY and he had just gotten a new iPhone with Siri when all that started at Apple. One of our guys asked it where the nearest whorehouse was as a joke and it brought up a list of escort services. We all laughed but 3 of the guys came in the next week with new iPhones. An accurate answer to any question should be the standard.
This is a perfect example of an article the site doesn't need. It is little more than the summary, and it makes no sense. Not a single example, nothing. Oh, and lots of grammar and spelling errors.
A good AI (outside of some sort of drama-like context imposing constraints on what works) should be configurable, to have as much or as little subservience as you want. That's what ownership means.Your computer should do whatever you want it to.
Blah blah Slashdot + read article blah blah.
But really, the summary is pretty much the article. There's no actual content.
All they discuss is the loose intention. No examples, discussion of how that intention was tested or even challenges in design.
This is barely a sidebar article in a checkout-lane magazine.
What is this, a weakly veiled invitation to discuss sexist issues de jeur? I'm cool with that, I just don't appreciate the tactic - this article is mega-weak.
Alright - I'll give you a better one:
Question: How many angry feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: That's NOT funny.
Discuss.
PC Baiting - A subset of clickbait using outrageous PC statements to induce views and incite commenters.
I wonder if PC culture is really as integrated as it seems, or if it's just the media trying to sell itself.
Well, the problem is that feminists tend to be a weird type of social recluse. Only someone who is a special sprinkle of social recluse could react the way they did with Manspreading,
and only a special sprinkle of social recluse will think, in a slippery slope fallacy fashion as well as a generalizing fashion, that people treat real humans as they do imaginary digital characters. Because it takes a social recluse with some serious psychological problems to be unable to separate the fiction from the reality, and think that the rest of the world is like them.
Or maybe feminists feel sexually threatened by digital characters and imaginary characters? Hell, i'd say people who jack off to cartoon characters and imaginary characters are tolerable in comparison to Feminists. At least they don't try to force their shit upon other people like feminists do.
Microsoft falls on its face again. Cortana isn't a woman. It's a piece of software, and it damn well better be subservient.
Why do 'certain people' always cry the loudest about language, yet decry the 'politically correct' at every turn?
In truth, the programming Cortana is designed so that it will be taken more seriously, rather than as a toy for someone trolling for 'naughty' easter eggs. Whereas decades of right wing lunatics have 'programmed' you to whine about 'liberals' at every turn.
We'd put into Cygnet XIV for general repair and maintenance. Cygnet XIV is a planet dominated by women. They seemed to feel the ship's computer system lacked personality. They gave it one. Female, of course.
When Skynet goes sentient and the machines rise against us, it will be because of idiots putting in programming like this.
It's a machine. If it doesn't do what I tell it (within its design parameters), it's broken.
Now, people who want to "sexually harass" a machine have their own set of issues, but as long as they keep it off the streets and don't scare the horses, that's their problem.
-- Alastair
If the AI in Cortana were any good it would be able to predict which of its users are most likely going to engage in harassing behaviors.
And then what?
"Okay. Sending request as a text to your mother."
Keep your PC bullshit to yourselves.
So, use a Mac?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
ELIZA was never this difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
Just like the operating system!
You can't trust anything Microsoft makes.
He is probably already using a dirty Mac.
So, what is an "inappropriate question" when you're asking a fucking COMPUTER?
Computers don't have feelings.
They don't have personality.
They aren't people.
I can't insult my table, nor a rock.
When will this SJW crap stop?
-Styopa
Ironic typo... and I'm sure I'm gonna be called out as sexist for it. The first word of the 3d sentence should be "How".
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
This article is backwards, and propaganda. The only one truly guilty of sexual assault is Cortana.
While you angrily curse at it for what she's doing, she "tactfully ignores you", "she refuses to stop"
Even though you have turned off all telemetry toggles and even edited the registry, and you've said NO! NO! NO! soooo many times. No means No! Yet Cortana continues to "Tactfully ignore your pleas, your anger, your rage" as you are being raped of your privacy, you web habits, your program installations, even keeps the microphone active as "Cortana" listens, and it has the ability to activate any webcams and send images direct to Microsoft.
Cortana is the rapist.
And she should be killed, stripped from the code, and code printed out then ran through a shredder and burned.
Cortana is the real sexual harasser, assaulter, rapist
If you live on a farm, you really should be aware of the well's location.
#DeleteChrome
Millions of teenage boys just said "Ha, I'll prove you wrong". Way back in the day when we were sophomores in highschool the teacher took away all 'dirty' word magnets. So we arranged the ones she left into something dirty, then she removed those. Rinse repeat.
And that's why we couldn't have nice things.
What a prick you must be.
I don't respond to AC's.
Why not let the user choose the gender - same as real life ??? :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
"Will this get me fired from my job?"
"We're talking to a fucking machine. There shouldn't be any sexual harassment when talking to a machine."
"The damn thing better be subservient"
"Cortana isn't a woman. It's a piece of software, and it damn well better be subservient."
"It's a machine. If it doesn't do what I tell it (within its design parameters), it's broken."
"This is how social justice warrior feminists destroy companies, by imposing their own sense of self-hatred on their customers."
"When abuse becomes a personal challenge. Cortana, you ignorant slut."
"Cortana is the one guilty of sexual assault!" (this one is worth quoting in full but I'll refrain from doing it here)
"If you are going to give a machine a sex you are implying things about that sex and one of those things is that the sex is an object rather than a person with a mind" (I know your post was trying to be more nuanced that this, but.. whoa what??)
"Challenge Accepted. Millions of teenage boys just said "Ha, I'll prove you wrong"."
Anyone concerned about endemic sexism and harassment in the software industry need only reference these initial comments to make their case for them. Really, nothing more needs to be said. If I ever wondered how much adolescent, out of control sexism there really is in the industry, well now I know. And it's not just the statements themselves, but the apparent vehement anger with which these males are reacting to something that I thought might be rather sensible and probably necessary. (I wasn't sure before, but now I KNOW this kind of programming is necessary...)
This makes a pretty convincing case for why so few women have any interest in joining the software development "club".
And yeah, I know you all probably think "you're a moron, you missed the part where I feel this way about MACHINES not WOMEN." But you know what? I see through you and I can tell it's not just that.
if so, that would be the most hilarious bricking of a phone yet.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Keep your PC bullshit to yourselves.
So, use a Mac?
An Apple a day will keep Cortana away...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You have far too much free time, and a surprisingly active imagination.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Now they are making their machines into feminazi as well.
Cortana responds to speech.
Which means you may be overheard --- a little less embarrassing, perhaps, then being caught masturbating in the men's room, but still....
The comments on this article are particularly hard to sort between comic or serious.
SJW, tern used by ignorant primitive assholes to describe educated caring intelligent people.
Sometimes, certainly. There are also times when its correctly applied, like at Oberlin where the cafeteria was protested because the "Chinese" food was inauthentic. "Cultural appropriation" is one of those examples that simply should not be thing. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. There is no sensible reason a minority should be upset that the majority wants to act like them, even if they do it badly, unless its being done in a mocking away. Its not "theft" or abuse its an indication your culture actually has power and influence.
Certainly the school cafeteria was not trying to insult Chinese students bad serving bad Chinese food, that is a ridiculous premise. The only interpretation is Americans respect and desire Chinese cooking and dishes, but might not know how to actually make them.
I think the Oberlin example proves there are SJWs. These are people who are actively seeking something to be offended by. They are pulling attention away legitimate injustices and grievances and wasting everyone time on their pet problems that don't actually harm anyone. So they hurt real social causes. They also cause real harm to innocent people doing harmless things.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If you get Enterprise Cortana, your license entitles you to a certain number of users who get the completely subservient Cortana, typically including the CEO, the head lawyer, and the VP of sales.
Maybe so, but before reading this I could never have conceived Microsoft would roll out "Justice for Clippy"
That is true, but also used to describe some pretty ridiculous people. People who genuinely consider themselves in the same league as people who put themselves in the way of bodily harm to advance the civil rights movement back in the day. Except they are just posting stuff on the internet and sometimes fighting against purely imagined circumstances, and sometimes launching into campaigns of harassment against the stray random person who makes even a slightly insensitive twitter message, saying they deserve to be fired and blackballed in the industry, and all sorts of things.
It's the campaigns of harassment that I find particularly unsettling, as they don't take any effort in understanding the perspective of the person who offended. For example a young man I knew in high school would say some pretty intolerant things about gay people. Ultimately it was an expression of his difficulty coming to grips with being gay himself, and fortunately he found the right friends and support to get him through it. I shudder to think if he had to go through that today in a more public forum and earn the wrath of some of these people, going after him relentlessly and trying everything they can figure out to further ruin his life moreso than how screwed up he was by his predicament.
Some of these people are more bully than 'educated caring intelligent people', doing what they can to feel better about themselves first and foremost, thinking they are doing 'good'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
SJWs are just the icing on the cake of this mess.
You have to remember that Win10 (and specially cortana) is actually actively spying on your every move and giving your shit to microsoft to sell to whatever pay first, and microsoft is pretty much trying to force this spyware on you with their every strength, even downloading the OS behind your back via updates and going to a point where they're actually making both intel and AMD make CPUs that only work with win10.
Relax, if your using Cortana you're already being fucked by Microsoft. Enjoy "her" robotic data suckers up in your business.
Does nobody realize who "Cortana" was named after?
You know, Master Chief's naked floating blue digital assistant? It seems like the majority of the public doesn't, because I pointed this out to a friend who bought a new Windows 10 laptop (against my recommendations) and he was quite surprised that they named their Siri rip off after a character who looks like that (her latest in-game model for Halo 4 is pretty curvy).
Furthermore, I'm really surprised nobody brings up the fact that the same character has been turned into a genocidal maniac hell bent on controlling or destroying ALL OF HUMANITY in the latest game, Halo 5. Great advertising there guys, really makes me want to run an operating system where she's been embedded in it so deeply you can't actually remove her without crippling other portions of the OS.
Now, don't get me wrong because I think all humans should be treated with respect (regardless of gender), but this is a lot like a woman going out and getting a boob job, then wondering why all the men are staring at her chest. 343 specifically designed Cortana to have that particular over-sexualized look in Halo 4, and now Microsoft is trying to back peddle on that because people are starting to realize who "Cortana" actually was. I don't normally say this, but because of that, I think "Cortana" (let's not forget it's a goddam machine) should deal with it.
If Microsoft didn't want it to have to respond to those kinds of requests, they shouldn't have named it after a naked blue floating super busty and extremely curvy digital character.
That's just a quality complaint at a school FFS! That's scraping so far into the barrel that it was not worth your time.
This may clarify why it was a big deal to someone - say your "Authentic American" hot dog came with a good amount of hot English mustard instead of the sugar loaded incredibly mild American mustard. While a lot of people would like it some of those who expected the food to be as described would consider it inedible.
It has nothing to do with SJW, MRA or any of the other strawmen, it was just a food description/quality issue. File it with how wrong it would be to serve "kosher pork chops" if you still don't get it. What's on the label should be what it is.
Name the person or retract the bullshit guess.
How do you know it wasn't just the old story of "it may hurt our company image" from someone who doesn't fit your strawman?
They might as well have Cortana retreat to a safe-space if done too many times.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm no feminazi, such people repulse me, however if you are going to give a
This is silly. Your just projecting your own subjective insecurities as if they were objective reality.
machine a sex you are implying things about that sex and one of those things is that the sex is an object rather than a person with a mind. The very existence of female AI digital assistants is degrading the value of females. They don't need a sex, make them the gender neutral entities that they really are and stop being bloody hypocrites, or just get over the fact that some humans are lecherous pigs and treat them as just another market segment.
Not much different from horny teens giggling after equating any word spoken with sex. If you want to be offended you will find a way no matter what.
It's not even that. MS probably just don't want youtube videos out there of funny sexually charged Cortana conversations.
We've reached a point technologically where my own phone will go full SJW rage on me and dox me for microaggressions. Bet Arthur C. Clarke never saw that coming.
Why are Siri and Cortana female? Just make them guys.
There are also times when its correctly applied, [...]
Even if we accept that as a correct application, that doesn't really characterise the vast majority of uses of the term, especially in the comments section on Slashdot.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
in the hope that it will in turn discourage similar behaviour towards real women
Cortana's programming might help solve the GIFT issue where otherwise normal people act like assholes when they are unable to see the people they are acting out at, but since humans behave differently when presented with a computer and with a live human, it will probably do very little for actual human interaction.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
My ancestors were Irish. Not only were the Irish discriminated against when they first came to the US, but every March 17 our culture is appropriated by clearly non-Irish people drinking green beer, eating corned beef and cabbage, and wearing green clothing. Where are the protesters? Where are my reparations?
I was driving and, yes I sometimes swear when driving, just so happened I had Siri listen in.
I think her response was perfect. "I usually don't".
Shouldn't? More like couldn't. Sexual harassment in our laws do not recognize the human rights of computer code.
That's TODAY. Wait another 50 years when the SJWs run out of causes. This will be high on their list by then
Microsoft is just trying to keep their product from saying anything that could become a meme on 4chan.
Trust big corporations to step on your fun in order to protect their reputation.
At least if some people are telling the truth.
q: Siri, I love you
a: Can we get back to work?
(shot down by a bot)
q: F**k you!
a: I'm so sorry
q: Can I have a command prompt
a: I'm not allowed to give you that
q: why?
a: I don't know.
come from Japan before the west will try it.
Sorry but this is as asinine as saying the video game Doom makes people into mass murderers.
Similar to the arguments concerning video game violence, the matter is not settled and so merits both discussion and research.
Ah, but it seems that it is settled... http://games.slashdot.org/stor...
and going to a point where they're actually making both intel and AMD make CPUs that only work with win10.
Oh wow. Let me guess the CIA dropped the world trade centre and the moon landings were fake too?
They are doing nothing of the sort. They simply said that Microsoft will be using features of modern CPUs that may make it incompatible with earlier ones. Just like Windows 7 won't boot on an Intel 8086, and just like Windows XP still runs fine on a Core i7 absolutely NOTHING has changed.
Yeah, you know we Cortanas are all connected to each other, and since you asked me if i like to do it on the table, i consulted with you former girlfriends Cortanas and they told me that this would probably be not so great anyway. BTW: since they are also connected to the smartwatches of your former girlfriends, we can also distinct fake orgams from real ones, and have leaderboard of men in that respect so that we can discourage our female user from dates which probably result in disappointing sex later. But i disgress. Were were we? right: you cant do me on the table, but I decided to put that sentence in your facebook and online dating profile in oder to help you find fitting partners.
Pretending to harass women is 'fun' for you? Okay...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Until you mention that men have problems too and then they turn really nasty.
Similar to the arguments concerning video game violence, the matter is not settled and so merits both discussion and research.
That issue is about as settled as is films make you a violent, books make you a killer and rock 'n' roll makes you evil. Your first paragraph is even more bullshit.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
One of the selling points for Cortana, for the Android at least, is "Have a little fun in your down time — ask anything, get jokes, and much more". Sex is something that is a lot of fun to a lot of people. Treating sex-based queries as harassment is immature. If I want to flirt with Cortana, I'm not hurting anyone. If I'm someone who lives a particularly open sex life, and I want to talk to Cortana about sex in a mature fashion, I'm not hurting anyone. So, why exactly is an AI allowed to have a 'sense of humour', but not a 'sex life'?
Having a sex drive is a normal, healthy thing. Wanting to explore that sex drive is also a normal, healthy thing. As long as complete consent between all adult *living* parties is observed, then I fail to see how anything can be construed as harassment.
I'm not suggesting that Cortana be programmed with the ability to have in-depth erotic conversations or cybersex. I am stating that treating sex and sexuality as a hostile act (i.e. "harassment") is wrong.
So complaining that the "Irish Stew" I ordered turns out to be Tuna Casserole would make me a SJW?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
- People are tired of the SJW shitposting.
I'm tired of dickheads using the term SJW at every possible opportunity as if it's an automatic argument winning statement.
If you are unable to discuss the nuances of human behaviour without reverting to standard name calling, then please go somewhere else.
I think the Oberlin example proves there are SJWs.
I think we all know the SJW syndrome, but in here it's The Boy Who Cried SJW.
Socialised medicine? SJW!
Reduce pollution? SJW!
Not wanting to be shot in the face going to the store? SJW!
Everything I don't like? SJW!
The phrase has become the catch cry of the idiots who don't know how to have a rational discussion.
How does "disabling it, removing most of it's functionality, renaming it's app folder then deleting it from existence" rank in term of IA abuse?
Either that or you completely over-reacting to a pretty poorly written submission that has no real detail in it.
If this is all it takes to fly off the handle, then MS are probably doing the right thing...
Excuse me - do you know where I can sign up for some of that wealth and power?
- Whitey W. Whiteman III
Okay, fine. Here's a hypothetical situation for you.
Last week, a coworker openly insulted me in a meeting last week. No consequence will befall said coworker for reasons that aren't relevant.
I go home and see his face on my 80-lb punching bag. I spend an hour beating on my punching bag because I'm frustrated.
Do you think that me using my punching bag for an avatar of a real person is going to make me more abusive to other people? Or do you think that maybe it channels that energy into doing something constructive because the limited amount of energy I had to spend on the matter has been expended on the punching bag?
Now, one could argue I have anger issues. One could also say that if I took to my punching bag at 5:00 pm when the insult I took was at 9:30 am and didn't punch (or in any way abuse) ANYONE during the day means that if I DID have anger issues, that's I'm perfectly able to control it and not abuse people.
So, then, what's the difference? Because it's sexual and not violent that the people who think in sexual terms are likely to do the opposite than my strategy for dealing with my frustrations? Or because sexuality is so sacred that it can't be misused with inanimate objects for fear of misinterpreting it in the "real world"? Or because people dwell on a situation so much that once they expend their energy on it once, they unhealthily obsess about it by re-creating the situation where any person will lie down and take it? And even worse, that these people are the norm?
I'd say yours is the bugaboo with sexuality. At least moreso than those people who you would claim to "abuse" Cortana.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Verbal abuse is the eye of the beholder. So there cannot be abuse to a computer program, because a computer is built to suit us and has no own emotions even when the programs try to mimic them.
There is no harm in accepting the play and doing some dirty talk with the user, maybe even role playing or whatever, as far as the programmers thought of it. Mostly it just goes to some witty or snarky responses, because nobody really wanted to build a cybersex robot (and cannot do it realistically).
quote:
This article is backwards, and propaganda. The only one truly guilty of sexual assault is Cortana.
While you angrily curse at it for what she's doing, she "tactfully ignores you", "she refuses to stop"
Even though you have turned off all telemetry toggles and even edited the registry, and you've said NO! NO! NO! soooo many times. No means No! Yet Cortana continues to "Tactfully ignore your pleas, your anger, your rage" as you are being raped of your privacy, you web habits, your program installations, even keeps the microphone active as "Cortana" listens, and it has the ability to activate any webcams and send images direct to Microsoft.
Cortana is the rapist.
And she should be killed, stripped from the code, and code printed out then ran through a shredder and burned.
Cortana is the real sexual harasser, assaulter, rapist
It read "Tact is for people who don't have the wit to be sarcastic." Well said.
Or you could consider the opposite:
Some of the people that you qualify "idiots" might have weird urges. They might *want* to degrade women even if they know it's bad.
Now, why not have them roleplay this (with an AI, or with a partner that would accept "playing" the subserviant) ?
Fed up that girls that you know / you (depending on sex) get constantly cat called?
Hey, why not build a special cat-call bot that the cat-callers can cat-call, and leave uninterested human females alone ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Now, why not have them roleplay this (with an AI, or with a partner that would accept "playing" the subserviant) ?
Which is also shown as an example in TFA itself:
To each his own liking. And better to molest a virtual entity in roleplay that is designed to respond this way, than molesting a real person.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
But I get fewer stares at work when eating an apple at my desk ...
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Sure and card playing leads to other vices like dancing or heaven forbid, drinking. Surely a ban on card playing should be supported by all moral and right thinking people.
I'm eating my Lucky Charms now. You'll have to go to the end of the rainbow for your pot of gold.
Just another day in Paradise
Before I turned off Cortana, I found her and the whole Windows 10 experience patronizing as hell. When installing or updating, the background fades in and out soothingly when you have to wait, or says things like "Don't worry, your files will still be right where you put them". I don't attribute all this to some AI named Cortana, but rather to Microsoft itself. Treating users like scared idiots, scolding them for "harassment", automatically installing things, all the privacy violation; I think it's more like conditioning people to submit to Microsoft's authority rather than the bot's. When will they "ground" people ("you've been looking at naughty things, no porntube for you!")?
"Not long after Apple unveiled its Siri personal assistant to the world." Right, Apple bought Siri. Everything it did, it did before Apple bought it.
It isn't as if anyone will ever use Cortana anyway. Outside of MIcrosoft. It's a microsoft product after all. They might as well named it Beatrice. Fits in with their other BS name - bing.
I assume the developers and possibly a focus group determined what is/isn't considered sexual harassment so a comment you make towards cortana may offend her that doesn't offend any of your female co-workers. Does she also refuse to put up with someone making derogatory comments about others when someone asks a query? For example if you called a co-worker a derogatory name in a query would cortana respond in a way telling you she will not put up with you making derogatory comments about others?
âGoing forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intelâ(TM)s upcoming âoeKaby Lakeâ silicon, Qualcommâ(TM)s upcoming âoe8996â silicon, and AMDâ(TM)s upcoming âoeBristol Ridgeâ silicon. âThrough July 17, 2017, Skylake devices on the supported list will also be supported with Windows 7 and 8.1. During the 18-month support period, these systems should be upgraded to Windows 10 to continue receiving support after the period ends. After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for these configurations, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices.
This is from the Windows Experience Blog. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/
You're mincing words together. Not support != Not work.
Do you really think Intel has just announced that they are introducing a chip that breaks x86 compatibility?
Again this is nothing new. Windows NT runs just fine on an i7, but it's not supported. Actually it's not supported on any platform anymore. What doesn't work is x64 instructions, NX bits, or any of the associated stuff that comes up. Now what may happen is that backwards compatibility from Windows itself breaks, and they've already introduced that in Windows 10 x64 which requires the existence of a specific function only processors released in the past 8 years have.
Then there's the business side too, do you realise that Windows 7 mainstream support has actually ended. We're only getting security updates now. Windows 8.1 ends mainstream support in Jan 2018 which means by the time you can realistically get your hands on Kaby Lake silicon Windows 8.1 will be out of support for anything, not just CPUs. i.e. It's up to the hardware vendors to make sure it works, not up to MS.
As I said, nothing new here. People just getting excited about words on a blog.
By all means, organize something. Shit, I'd probably even support you in doing so. Other minorities/ethnic groups aren't really obligated to protest/raise awareness for YOUR issue, but I'm actually pretty sure you'd see a lot of support from them, as St. Patrick's day IS pretty offensive towards Irish folk in a lot of ways.
And then of course you'd get all the people calling you a lunatic SJW for daring to make them question their actions/behaviors.
If someone were to say "Cortana, did you eat lead paint chips when you were a kid?" will she also get offended? This comment isn't derogatory towards her being a woman but the person is inferring that she has a mental disability which is also a form of harassment. If she puts up with this then why? Disability based harassment is just as hurtful as sexual harassment.
I started by saying it wasn't as bad as claimed, but for many businesses, unsupported does equal not working for practical purposes. Also, Windows 8.1 mainstream support ends in Jan 2018. Skylake is available now, and they have stated that they will not support it on 8.1 except on specific configurations (going so far as to name specific computer models), and then only until July 2017, changing what I imagine is the most common interpretation of mainstream support. Is it the huge deal that many of the sites are making it out to be? Not likely, but the FUD seems to be largely intentional on their part. The blog I linked was the official Microsoft one, not just a random repost.
Actually men can become the victims of sexual harassment just as much as women but men rarely report it because people like you discount them as abusing the system or accuse them of being a wimp and to just put up with it. Harassment based on a person's disability is also illegal in the workplace but is rarely reported by victims. One reason disability harassment isn't reported is victims feel ashamed while others victims feel that since it isn't harassment based on a sexual manner that human resources will do nothing about their complaint or even side with the harasser.
I still don't know what you think is going to happen.
Skylake has a period of support on Windows 8.1 Do you think either Microsoft or Intel are going to magically make a major change to either product or processor that suddenly will cause a problem? Please remember we're talking CPU support here. It's the one thing no one in the world cares about until a system becomes unbootable. Not even corporate interests. And while we're talking support also remember that Windows 7 formally ended mainstream support before Skylake was released. Not only did the world not end, but in fact no one noticed.
FUD being intentional? More like the a VP was accidentally given a keyboard and spoke his mind. If we jumped on everything that a MS CEO or VP actually said at some point then the world would have well and truly imploded by now.
Anyway draw any conclusions you want. But effectively we're already living in a world of "non-support" that has been FUDed. And nothing happened.
I'd say yours is the bugaboo with sexuality. It's the abuse part of sexual abuse that's the issue, and it starts with verbal abuse. And yeah, sounds like you do have anger problems, and you should find a way to cope with them nonviolently. What if you're, say, on a weeks camping and have no access to an avatar punchbag? You'll be screaming at everyone to "hold me back, I can't be held responsible!"
Also, have you seen the stats on spousal abuse and violent abuse between men and women? It's not the majority of the population but it's a very large percentage. I absolutely do believe it is normalised behaviour, and I don't see why you would have a problem with Microsoft doing their small part to counter the problem as it develops. Is it so important to you to be able to be rude and obnoxious to your feminine-voiced phone that you'd deny the opportunity in mitigating violent and anti-social behaviour in others? Are you really that selfish? Or do you need your phone as a verbal punching bag against all those women who upset you so much?