Microsoft Uses AI To Produce Inaccurate Depictions Of Windows 11 For Its Learning Center Documentation

Imagine this: you don’t know how Windows 11 works, so you go find resources online and Microsoft’s got your back. You look at the images for instruction and wonder, why are there two Start buttons shown in the image? Turns out this is an AI-generated image with unmistakably dubious quality, which makes one question if this company is ever beating the “MicroSlop” allegations.

Really, Microsoft?

The offending article is “How to use Snipping Tool on Windows 11“, which sounds pretty straightforward as you read through the text with step-by-step guides on how to enable functions like screenshots or even screen recording. Near the end of the text you’ll find the offending image, and I’ll let the file name do the talking on how this image came to be: “An adult male learns the keys that activate the Snipping Tool in Windows.” Wonder if that’s the prompt given to Copilot in order to generate this image.

Perhaps the most baffling part of this is why doesn’t Microsoft just use the screenshot button on any Windows laptop to show what the actual Snipping Tool interface looks like, which would’ve served as a much more effective way of communicating the instructions than asking an LLM chatbot to generate a half-baked image that couldn’t clearly figure out what Windows 11’s interface looks like. Ironically, even Copilot couldn’t figure out Windows has moved the Start button to the center by default. That’s clearly not how a learning resource is supposed to work!

While the multi-trillion-dollar software giant is pretty unapologetic about AI use in this article (note the caption), it has seemingly gotten aware of the fact that it got caught by media outlets like Windows Latest and ended up deciding to remove the offending image anyway. Someone out there clearly had been smart enough to make sure the evidence remains intact, which you can see for yourself by clicking on this archived webpage courtesy of Wayback Machine.

Oh, and Microsoft, may I offer our help in giving you the correct depiction of how Snipping Tool and Windows 11 interface should look like? You’re welcome.

Pokdepinion: This is just… stupid.