Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels
- Reference: 1761749448
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/10/29/emma_thompson_ai/
- Source link:
When [1]Stephen Colbert asked the Oscar-winning performer and writer how she felt about "the coming AI revolution," Thompson didn't hold back: "Intense irritation."
Why is Big Tech hellbent on making AI opt-out? [2]READ MORE
Her target? Microsoft Word's Copilot feature, which constantly offers to rewrite her work. "When I've written something and put it into a Word document, it's constantly saying, 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'" Thompson said.
The UK national treasure added: "I don't need you to [expletive deleted] rewrite what I've just written. Will you [expletive deleted] off. Just [expletive deleted] off!"
[3]Clippy rises from the dead in major update to Copilot and its voice interface
[4]Microsoft threatens to ram Copilot into Exchange Server on-prem
[5]Lloyds Banking Group claims Microsoft Copilot saves staff 46 minutes a day
[6]The real insight behind measuring Copilot usage is Microsoft's desperation
Colbert suggested Thompson show the computer her screenwriting Oscar. "I don't think that it would care," Thompson replied.
Microsoft [7]rolled out Copilot in Word in January . Users can disable it by clearing the "Enable Copilot" checkbox in options, however, Thompson's outburst highlights a broader issue: these features arrive enabled by default, uninvited.
For an award-winning writer, an AI assistant offering to "improve" her prose is particularly galling. Perhaps the lesson is simple — don't enable features unless users explicitly request them. We've moaned about this before but clearly Redmond is ignoring the common sense brigade.
[8]
The Register asked Microsoft what it thought of the Dame's comments. A spokesperson said the company will respond if it has "anything to share." We're not holding our breath.
[9]
Until then, Thompson has our vote for the best AI takedown of 2025. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://youtu.be/LkpQ_rTDqFg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/23/why_is_ai_optout/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/24/microsoft_clippy_copilot_update/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/copilot_exchange_server/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/lloyds_banking_copilot/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/copilot_viva_insights_column/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/17/copilot_microsoft_365/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aQJIKKnkjdKtgQOODnReJQAAAU8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQJIKKnkjdKtgQOODnReJQAAAU8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Clippy would never read my medical data.
Clippy would never read my personal messages.
Clippy would never tell me a lie.
Bring back Power Pup.
https://www.wussu.com/humour/images/tywych04.gif
Yes, yes, and more yes. Copilot can Foxtrot Oscar and join Clippy...they're one and the same anyway.
Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.
Good try, though!
Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.
Yeah, the El Reg comments features is a bit 19th century, and can't handle logging in and commenting on the same submit - or so it told me. Hence the dup.
Wordstar
The author of the Game of Thrones series, George R.R. Martin, famously writes all of his novels with Wordstar 4 in DOS. This will never happen to him.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26695017
For anyone wanting a taste of this unchanging utility, try "Joe's Own Editor."
https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/
(I actually have a floppy distribution of Wordstar 4 in the original binder.)
Not saying it's a red flag but...
If I was a senior executive in a company and the whole audience cheered when a celebrity writer and performer expressed how increasingly infuriating our products were becoming, I hope I'd at least think hard about whether we were doing the right thing.
This is probably why I'm not a senior executive.
Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...
I suppose if I had spent many billions of my company's money, gambling on a product that had no obvious use, I would also have a crowbar in my hand desperately jamming that product into every crevice. I'd also be enabling it by default and then praying to all known deities that people quickly found it essential (or at least too much trouble to replace like Windows). I'm betting that the reason for copilot's existence was meant to emerge within six months of giving OpenAI $20 billion. Now after two years things are getting desperate. Understanding is not forgiving though. **** those ****ers.
Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...
Senior executives don't think like that.
We had literally the whole company complaining about an internal tool change causing huge issues.
Senior execs immediately put out a video to tell us that it was actually an exemplar of a successful roll out and actually demonstrated how good they were at listening to concerns from us minions.
Nothing fixed since.
re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"
Hell no, no way, never in a gazillion years.
I've just had my fourth novel published. The ONLY AI in it is two illustrations because I'm a lousy artist.
I will never use AI to write a word in my work. I have added a paragraph to the copyright page that says:-
This is a work of fiction and is 100% the brainchild of the author. NO AI tool was used in the generation of the text. If there are faults then it is the sole responsibility of the author and not some stupid AI tool. KEEP LITERATURE FREE OF AI crappy text.
Well said Emma. Your father would be proud (Time for Bed, said Zebedee)
Didn't see her moaning about it in Flubber!
Use a typewriter
Or use software not connected to AI. Is it that hard (at the moment)?
It really is irritating
I was trying to type something the other day on an unfamiliar system -- Chrome on Windows, nothing special -- and the damn thing decided not to just autocomplete words but sentences. The suggestions were in light type, like faint pencil marks, but were still profoundly irritating.
My objects weren't just the distraction but the amount of processing cycles and internet traffic it was causing. I don't want my typing speed governed by the loading of my processor and the instantaneous latency of my network connection. I'm typing in English, not Chinese.
Good
Good!
Something irritating this irritating celeb can only be a good thing.
Keep it up CoPilot :]
Yes, yes and yes. Copilot can Foxtrot Oscar and go the same way Clippy went. they're one and the same anyway.