it's part of a weird cross-branding thing with qualcomm where they're including "ai accelerator" chips in new snapdragon socs, and microsoft is inventing a "Copilot+" brand to slap on new hardware that uses these socs in order to pretend they have some sort of real-world use
Windows on ARM is fully in the "cruel joke" software category; it's basically a scam where they disguise chromebooks as real laptops and sell them for 2x the price of a chromebook, but slightly cheaper than a computer. No one has ever intentionally bought a windows ARM machine; they are only purchased by accident. Adding an AI keylogger to the new models will not help
I'm not saying any of this is Good but I AM saying probably don't panic. You're not going to wake up tomorrow and find this shit patched onto your previously-working PC
Obviously it's still possible they'll try to inflict this on real computers SOME day, but that's not the product they're currently attempting to sell
That’s why it’s exclusive to the Qualcomm devices for now, but that’s the main thing; if you want Copilot branding you need an NPU. Recall itself needs an NPU of at least 40 TOPS and neither the AMD or Intel offerings meet that.
Yet.
It probably won’t be back ported, so your existing hardware is safe from this particular bit of egregious spyware, but it’s not reliant on ARM and it means there’s a very good chance your future computer purchases will need further consideration.
Which is kind of amusing honestly - the best time to think about an OS switch would be when building or buying an all new PC.
While I agree with a lot of the anti-panic message, this post is also filled to the brim with outdated and panic-baiting information.
Firstly, NPU (Neural Processing Units) are nothing new. Apple has been shipping “AI Accelerators” aka Neural Engines in their own silicon since 2017, in the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X’s A11 Bionic chip. A chip that is so old that Apple no longer supports giving it major OS updates. NPU are nothing special. They’re basically a CPU that specialize in performing on-device neural learning tasks so that not as much stuff has to be sent to a server off-device. They enable a lot of neural learning tasks (like improved virtual assistants, photo editing, copying text from photos, etc.) to be done on-device. It was only recently, with the AI Fad booming, that companies started slapping the “AI” label onto them for marketing purposes. They’re still the same old computer type we’ve seen for years, and just like with a CPU or GPU, they mean absolutely nothing for your security or privacy. It’s always up to the OS attached to them for that decision.
Secondly, Windows on ARM is not like it used to be. Windows on ARM did used to be shit, but Qualcomm and Microsoft have done some crazy shit with these new Snapdragon X chips. Basically, Microsoft created an entirely new Kernel and OS Compiler to make sure that x86_64 to ARM64 translation is as seamless as it is on MacOS. That’s the rumor at least. We won’t know how much of, or if, it’s actually an improvement in ARM64 support, but what we do know is that it’s a major change, regardless, so copy/pasting your opinion over from previous Windows on ARM attempts isn’t a good move, here.
Also, Qualcomm isn’t the only company doing ARM. Not only is Apple four generation into putting their own ARM chips in Macs, but AMD and Nvidia are planning to release ARM chips by 2025. Intel is only lagging behind because (let’s be real, because they’re Intel) they make royalties off the proprietary and copyrighted technologies within the x86 and x86_64 architecture.
ARM64 is also a great technology. It most certainly will define the coming decades of the personal computer. Similar to how we saw a shift from 68K to PPC32 to x86, I have full confidence it won’t be long before we see a transition from x86_64 to ARM64, and that’ll be a good thing! ARM64 is an incredibly powerful architecture that utilizes far more modern instruction sets for hyper-efficient silicon, and efficiency is always a good a thing. So don’t let Microsoft’s shitty, shove it down everyone’s throat, approach to cashing in on the AI fad taint your opinion or perspective on ARM64 and NPUs. Overall, they’re a computing technology that’ll allow us to make more powerful, more efficient, and (in theory) more secure devices.
The fault for all this crap and security risk falls not on ARM64 or NPUs, but Microsoft and the bloatware bundle they’re selling to you under the name of “Windows.”