MOOSPEAK: MAR21.2025
CoPilot Hijacked It and Then Crashed It
There was a very nice article about the latest Fed meeting slated for this space but alas, it is gone forever. I was typing merrily along mid-afternoon Sunday less than an hour from finishing up when something happened.
My Microsoft word document disappeared. All 25 pages gone. A blank co-pilot page appeared with the same name and with no obvious way to cancel or close it.
After two and a half days of writing, I had to start over from scratch. Eight hours later I have rewritten all but the FOMC editorial, and I’m going to bag it in favor some tech advice.
Near as I can tell Microsoft has a new AI functionality that they are promoting called Co-Pilot. I have only looked at it briefly and was not impressed with the AI, but I have resolved to give it another chance when I have time, but not on the fly when I have a deadline.
If you do Word documents or Excel spreadsheets for a living and see a co-pilot icon somewhere on the page, I suggest going into preferences and unchecking the co-pilot option. Disable it in the app’s preferences until you know how it works. (There are scores of google listings that try to explain it.)
If you don’t deactivate it, it keeps inserting a little icon in various places in your documents offering to help you. It apparently operates in Word, Excel, and other Microsoft programs. If you unintentionally drag your cursor over the icon you could very well regret it.
I did and I do.
I have since unchecked co-pilot in my Word and Excel preferences.