This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Why is it never the other way around? I’m sick of EULA updates silently enrolling me into things i never asked for
As Louis Rossmann likes to say, this is a rapist mentality.
Ask for forgiveness instead of permission.
They are asking for legal trouble anyway, at least in Europe
And we’ll just watch them either get slapped by an insignificant fine, or watch them weasel their way out of this again, by claiming they made you agree to some perpetual abandonment of rights, like they always do
Or pay a fine of half a billion or so, but only 15 years later
Plus the options are frequently hidden and unclear.
I thought disabling One Drive on my Windows machine would keep it from syncing to the cloud. Nope, it just changed where the files were stored but Windows copies it to One Drive even when One Drive isn't running.
In the case of google, I assume that turning off the Gemini bullshit doesn't have any impact on it copying all the content to their servers even if you don't see it happening.
but Windows copies it to One Drive even when One Drive isn't running.
I don't understand why users and our justice system let them get away with this. This is malicious. Your operating system is literally literally malware. It does not respect your choices and it steals your information.
to shove it in people's faces who would never go out of their way to turn it on. probably like 99% of people.
A single message now generates 20 different summaries and analyses, requiring a rack of GPUs and a diesel generator.
We're so lucky that electricity is unlimited and free, otherwise it might've caused a serious problem.
Eat more AI! We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this fucking garbage, so EAT IT! Yeah! It’s in your email! It’s in your car! IT’S IN YOUR TEETH (launch date: Q2 2026)!
You jest, but I've already seen "AI-powered" toothbrushes on shelves. Let's give even more health data to corporate giants!
How the hell can they even afford that?! There are so many Gmail users and so many emails a second and Gemini will summarize them all? That sounds so expensive and like a waste of resources
It is, but the bubble mustn't burst or the grifters will stop making money selling "the end of skilled labor" to braindead capitalists.
Actually, investment in AI is necessary for competing with other nations.
The "end of skilled labor" selling point is just to cover up that fact that we need AI because other nations will have it.
Countries are modern-day fiefs.
Alright, let's tear this idea apart in plain, no-BS language. The whole "we gotta invest in AI to keep up with other nations" argument is like saying you need the flashiest new phone just because your neighbor got one—even if your old phone still works perfectly fine. Sure, some countries are all-in on AI like it's the latest craze, but that doesn't mean we have to jump on the bandwagon and mess up our lives.
The whole "end of skilled labor" hype is really just a cover-up. People have been doing amazing work with their hands and brains for ages—long before AI even existed. And let’s talk downsides: more people losing jobs, a privacy mess, and decisions being made by glitchy algorithms that might not give a damn about real-life problems. We didn't need AI to build everything we have today. We've been doing just fine without handing over our lives to a bunch of computer code.
So, if you're buying into the "we need AI to keep up with the cool kids on the global stage" nonsense, you're ignoring the fact that the smart move might just be hanging on to good old human skill. Instead of racing into an AI-fueled chaos, maybe we should just keep doing what we do best—using our brains and common sense.
Google makes a lot of money, and summarising stuff uses a surprisingly small amount of energy. You can do it trivially on-device on a laptop and on plenty of phones.
When it comes to LLMs, training the models is generally the thing that requires ridiculous amounts of energy.
This is dumb as fuck, though. I don't want Google's LLM to miss out critical details in my emails. That shit could be important. If people want this they should opt in.
It's so weird that we have to go through hoops and loops to get rid of this stuff! I was sick of my Android responding to a long press of the power button, meant to shut it down, with a Gemini prompt. Took me an hour to figure out I can't get rid of the function, but I can switch back (for now) to old style Google Assistant.
If you have to force functionality down your users' throat despite them not wanting it, you already lost. Gemini is Google's Clippy, just less iconic and more also-ran.
If you have to force functionality down your users' throat despite them not wanting it, you already lost.
As much as I'd like to think so, they're not stupid, they know what they're doing. They cram it in your face to make sure you know it's there. And most people don't care.
More opt outs... Everyone, just opt out of big tech
We should opt into little tech. A guy in Venezuela just trying to buy a couple days food will read your email and summarize it for you!
This made me think of the South Park episode where they're hiring people to replace the Amazon Alexa and stuff.
In reply to all of the complaints here: I've never seen anything about Gemini on my Graphene OS device. 🤷♂️
But your recipient uses it.
Exactly.
Communication with people is hard enough already without an LLM deciding what parts are important.
Idiots using LLMs to write emails to people using LLMs to summarise them. It's just slop all the way down.
End users: To access Gemini summary cards, users need to have smart features and personalization smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet and smart features in Google Workspace turned on. Visit the Help Center to learn more about collaborating with Gemini in Gmail.
Sounds like it's an opt in, what am I missing
If you already had smart replies or similar enabled (they were available before Gemini hit the scene) then you have to go opt out.
That makes sense
Sounds like it’s an opt in, what am I missing
Because it's a clear step on the enshittification slide. It's opt in for now.
FWIW I use Fastmail and it works great.
And that's why I set up forwarding from Gmail and Outlook to my new Tuta account.
In a few months I should be free, happily paying for EU alternative were the default swipe gesture stands for delete instead of archive.
Forwarding in itself doesn’t do shit as they still have your mail
But yea if you want to avoid Google's website that’s nice I guess
I would also use a mail alias service so you get more privacy and can switch mail host whenever you want
