They need to create AI-coholics with this Bill Gates-way drug.
Our already AI-obsessed society could become even more digitally dependent. Microsoft unintentionally leaked plans to get people actually hooked on their new artificial intelligence assistant named Scout, according to a dystopian inside memo procured by tech watchdog 404 Media.
Formerly identified as Clawpilot, the bot is an inside device for staff that was launched as half of “Project Lobster,” the tech giant’s marketing campaign to deliver a more user-friendly model of the OpenClaw AI device to its Microsoft 365 suite of merchandise.
“We’re seeing more and more addiction happening with AI chatbots and agents and overall addiction to me is something no product should be making a part of its build strategy,” critiqued one nameless Microsoft worker. “It feels like one of those ‘saying the quiet part out loud’ moments in the document.” Tierney – stock.adobe.com
Per the confidential Microsoft doc, dubbed “ClawPilot: Overview and Plan with Project Lobster,” Scout is primarily designed for people in finance, legal, HR, and other non-technical roles.
It sits alongside you, learns how you work, and conducts duties on your behalf, including managing your calendar, triaging your e-mail inbox, and even making ready conferences, per the memo.
The memo declared intentions to maximize Scout’s affect with a three-phase plan. Phase one? “Make people addicted.”
“Continue shipping the standalone ClawPilot experience,” the doc reads. “Pilot the UX, grow the user base, and build the skill and tool ecosystem that makes people depend on it daily. This is already happening organically.”
Getting people addicted was half of a three-phase plan to maximize Scout’s affect on the public. wachiwit – stock.adobe.com
They claimed that Scout — which is used by over 1,000 staff, including CEO Satya Nadella — is one of Microsoft’s “most requested tools” even though they didn’t make a formal announcement or do any advertising and marketing.
The plan’s other two phases entail linking Scout to other AI instruments and outfitting it with even more options, presumably upping the micro-dosage.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gives a presentation. Microsoft developer / YouTube
This aim to seemingly techspedite our digital dependency didn’t sit properly with many Microsoft staff, one of whom dubbed the measure “troubling” in an nameless interview with 404.
“We’re seeing more and more addiction happening with AI chatbots and agents and overall addiction to me is something no product should be making a part of its build strategy,” they said. “It feels like one of those ‘saying the quiet part out loud’ moments in the document.”
However, another saw this response as a tad overblown, asserting that “the end goal of all software made by all major technology companies to be addicting.”
“Luckily for us, Microsoft is pretty bad at making addicting products compared to some of the other big companies,” the critic quipped.
That being said, the concept of AI habit has raised alarm bells among techsperts, who notice that the sycophantic tech is programmed to kiss butts to keep customers hooked.
A current Stanford examine of 11 giant language fashions — including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek — discovered that the chatbot placated the consumer almost 50% more typically than people, even in response to dangerous prompts.
In flip, customers perpetuate this cycle by inputting prompts that gravitate toward incomes them reward, which can show detrimental to their long-term mental health.
“In the long run, this could normalize synthetic relationships in which the other side never meaningfully resists, disagrees or has independent needs,” Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, a tenured affiliate professor and laptop scientist at the University of Louisville, beforehand advised The Post.
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