

The exact layout of Intel's options may vary from system to system, but on my machine: If you dislike this feature, it can be disabled (or adjusted) it in the settings for your graphics card. So yes, this is a feature, unfortunately this means either dealing with the effect, or forfeiting the power savings it produces.

Unfortunately this can be annoying if important parts of the UI are light colors (like Chrome), or when dealing with highly visual applications (Photoshop, Media, etc) where changes to brightness have a negative effect on visual fidelity.

This technology detects whether the screen is displaying a mostly dark or mostly light image, and adjusts the back light accordingly. This is the effect of either Intel's "Display Power Saving Technology" or AMD's "Vari-Bright" feature, the intent is to reduce power usage by reducing brightness when you look at dark images (which ostensibly would not need to be back lit so much).
