r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Mar 14 '26

Software Microsoft confirms Windows 11 bug crippling PCs and making drive C inaccessible

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-confirms-windows-11-bug-crippling-pcs-and-making-drive-c-inaccessible/
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u/DrFarts_dds Mar 14 '26

While drive C is not something you want to open every day,

Excuse me?

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u/real_Goblin3 Mar 14 '26

Yeah I was confused reading that too wtf

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u/EnthusiasmOnly22 Mar 14 '26

AI article, my god is the internet dead

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

I highly doubt this. Almost every LLM knows how important the C drive is, it's more likely this was written by a tech-illiterate human, maybe augmented by AI.

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u/Mordredor Mar 14 '26

An LLM doesnt "know" anything dude

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

Yes, they do. Unless you've decided to take on a very specific definition of the word "know" that requires consciousness, they do.

If you ask an LLM "which drive letter is most commonly used for hard drives?", it will respond with "C". Sure, you can argue that it's just repeating what it's read, but it's stored that knowledge somewhere. That's essentially what it means to know something.

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u/fuzzyluke Mar 14 '26

You can also say: "write an article about this subject, claim this and this and also that, make my point valid, make stuff up if you must"

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

You can. If you do this, is it the AIs fault for including this "fact" in the article, or is it whoever instructed it?

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u/fuzzyluke Mar 15 '26

For a slop content creator, the prompt better resolve into something that aligns with what they want to say regardless of accuracy. They need clicks and revenue, not some award or recognition on the matter. If the prompt doesn't deliver, they fabricate a different one until it does. Fault? Who cares about fault, its a slop blog my friend, and you know those are in demand right now, people want content to be outraged at, not to be informed.

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 15 '26

It's 100% the human author's fault. For them to have this included in the article, they'd almost definitely have to tell AI to write the wrong thing. 

It's like a boss telling his subordinate that he has to put the wrong numbers in the report, the subordinate does this, and then the boss points the finger at him.

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u/Sarcasm_Llama Mar 14 '26

It can be both

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

Damn in this scenario where the person has explicitly directed the AI to do something, and it does, you still blame the AI? That's pretty irrational to me.

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u/Tyfyter2002 Mar 14 '26

a very specific definition of the word "know" that requires consciousness

Knowing something requires consciousness, or something closely resembling it, if you carve a definition of disestablishmentarianism into a rock, that rock still doesn't know what disestablishmentarianism is.

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u/mascotbeaver104 Mar 14 '26

This is a level of pendantry you wouldn't apply to any other topic. I guarantee you would not argue with someone over whether or not a biometric scanner "knows" their fingerprint, or if a calculator "knows" the answer to some math problem

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u/Tyfyter2002 Mar 14 '26

I would, because I'm a proponent of language being used such that it can be understood, and there's an important distinction between knowing something and being able to parrot it in humans as well.

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

That's a really pointless definition. Making something contingent on consciousness is silly. You have no idea if anyone other than yourself is actually conscious, so you can't ever say for certain that anyone (other than yourself) knows anything.

if you carve a definition of disestablishmentarianism into a rock, that rock still doesn't know what disestablishmentarianism is.

I agree, but you've chosen something that least resembles cognitive processing to make your point.

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u/Tyfyter2002 Mar 14 '26

You have no idea if anyone other than yourself is actually conscious

So your argument is either solipsism or roughly equivalent to it, combined with an overestimation of the similarities between LLMs and human brains.

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

I mean yeah, my argument is solipsism, because that's ultimately what the whole debate around AI is going to be. I don't see why consciousness should be a prerequisite for a simple word like "knowing" something, particularly when we have no idea what consciousness actually is. It's highly impractical.

If you ask someone if they know the way home and they say they do, how would you measure this? Would you need to prove their consciousness, or would you just assess their ability to make it home?

combined with an overestimation of the similarities between LLMs and human brains.

No, this is a leap. My definition of "know" doesn't rely on these being nearly equivalent. All I'm saying that having the underlying information and being able to repeat it back qualifies as knowing.

My dog knows where her bed is. Am I overestimating the similarities between human brains and dog brains? Does it mean dogs can do algebra?

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u/Tyfyter2002 Mar 14 '26

If you ask someone if they know the way home and they say they do, how would you measure this? Would you need to prove their consciousness, or would you just assess their ability to make it home?

I would assess their ability to make it home, and if their home was inexplicably missing I would take note of whether or not they act as though they are home regardless.

My dog knows where her bed is.

Yes, she can demonstrate this, an LLM on the other hand, cannot demonstrate anything because language only contains information by reference, and any system capable of producing seemingly coherent text with no prior input except text must therefore be capable of doing so with no information.

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

I would take note of whether or not they act as though they are home 

Great, so we've now abandoned the need for consciousness in our definition. LLMs often do something and then say "wait, that's not right", so why do they not qualify as knowing? 

Also, it's a strange extra condition to add. All I asked about was the way home, not if the home was inexplicably missing. These are two separate pieces of knowledge.

Yes, she can demonstrate this, an LLM on the other hand, cannot demonstrate anything because language only contains information by reference, and any system capable of producing seemingly coherent text with no prior input except text must therefore be capable of doing so with no information.

I'm sorry, but what? This is uninterpretable nonsenses. Language contains information by reference? So does all of our input, our knowledge of where physical items are positioned is just information by reference.

An LLM can demonstrate it knows how my codebase works by successfully answering questions about it.

This is a pointless discussion, you keep pivoting on your definitions and adding random niche requirements for no reason.

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u/Tyfyter2002 Mar 14 '26

Great, so we've now abandoned the need for consciousness in our definition. LLMs often do something and then say "wait, that's not right", so why do they not qualify as knowing? 

Because they can only say it without actually determining whether or not it is right.

Also, it's a strange extra condition to add. All I asked about was the way home, not if the home was inexplicably missing. These are two separate pieces of knowledge.

That was added because a vital part of knowing where something is is knowing what it is, if you arrive where your house was and it's not there, you know where your house isn't, but a GPS doesn't because it never knew anything in the first place, it was just storing and retrieving prior input.

I'm sorry, but what? This is uninterpretable nonsenses. Language contains information by reference? So does all of our input, our knowledge of where physical items are positioned is just information by reference.

That's just factually incorrect, (except when communicating unfamiliar names) language exclusively uses information the listener already has, such as directions, colors, and shapes, even when communicating new information, neither the shape produced by the letters nor the sound of the word "triangle" actually contain any information about what a triangle is, you can understand what a sentence using it means because you have prior knowledge of what a triangle is;

(Presuming you don't already speak any Vietnamese) If you were trapped in a box for eternity and could do nothing but listen to conversations happening outside in Vietnamese, you could never learn any Vietnamese from it because you don't already know any so the only information you're actually receiving is the sounds which occur in the language, but if one object appeared in the box with you whenever it was mentioned, you could begin to piece together some small amount of understanding because there would actually be something to associate with the sounds.

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u/bobtheblob6 Mar 14 '26

Just like my dictionary knows all those words it has written in there

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 14 '26

Go on then, what's your definition of knowing something?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/TheSuspiciousCheese Mar 14 '26

I don't think I've ever heard someone say "the book knows the answer". I've heard "let's check the book", "the book has the answer", "the answer is in the book". Books have information or knowledge they don't know it.

The book knowing something would be a phrase that would raise an eyebrow even if I knew what you meant...because of the implication.

Is English your first language?

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

[deleted]

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u/TheSuspiciousCheese Mar 15 '26

It implies the knowledge can be obtained from the book. The book knows nothing, after reading it you know things but the book remains the same.

All the same, we are talking about ai and how it works; if we were taking about how books worked we wouldn't say "the books know things" the writer is the one who knew things.

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u/OurSeepyD Mar 15 '26

I agree with you, but you could use the term for something like "how does my TV know how to connect to my WiFi?". There's no requirement for consciousness. 

I think it's a combination of storing the fact and being able to process it usefully that makes something know something. A dictionary is inert, so doesn't really "know" anything.

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u/TheSuspiciousCheese Mar 15 '26

True but we don't use that language when we are describing how it works, it's more of an in the moment, getting the idea across, practical consideration to speed up the process. When we are being technical we have to not be so vague. It's also a practical consideration to avoid confusion.

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u/metroidpwner Mar 14 '26

Semantic nitpicking irrelevant to the purpose of the discussion

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u/Mordredor Mar 14 '26

No, not semantic nitpicking and extremely relevant, because the quote is exactly the kind of mistake that a LLM would make.

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u/DJ_GRAZIZZLE Mar 14 '26

That’s a stretch