We don’t “get” tech anymore. Tech happens to/at us. We are already getting AI generated ads. Where are the AI based ad blockers?
Already happened. It died because it turns out the AI was funneling all of your browsing data to the servers running the AI instead
GPT-AdBlocker for Chrome promises to block all ads, including ads in videos - gHacks Tech News - https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/19/gpt-adblocker-for-chrome-promises-to-block-all-ads-including-ads-in-videos/
They’d be useless. Unless you trained it yourself there would 100% be a whitelist you couldn’t see, or it’d be gobbling up all your data.
to be fair, Microsoft is also shoving Copilot down our throats. They keep adding unremovable Copilot buttons to Outlook.com
I would say that neither corporation forcing AI on us is fair by any stretch
It is one of the few useful usecases tho. It can summarize meetings if transcribe is on.
Oof, luckily I don’t have to use o365 at work anymore.
They replaced the “M365” app icon with “M365 copilot” and the copilot icon on android the other day. I Uninstalled it.
It’s nice to be able to use copilot in some of these apps, it is shit to be forced to have it everywhere.
Google was “cool” 2 decades ago… or before they combined both monetization (through ad) with power (through monopoly) they inexorably transformed EXACTLY to Microsoft the same way Facebook/Meta did the Google playbook.
Those huge tech corporations are pulled by the market to follow the same, sadly successful, strategy playbook and keep no uniqueness.
Google has been the new Microsoft for years already but through careful marketing consumers somehow believe they aren’t.
Google is slipping. Duck duck go is a better search engine. There are better mail systems as well. Meta is done as well.
Some of my non-techie friends were complaining about how rubbish Google search is now and I suggested Duck Duck Go. They couldn’t get past the name. I know it’s based on some childhood game in the US but it makes no sense to anyone here in the UK.
So back to the search engine with the serious and sensical name “Google” then?
No, that’s not “back”, which implies they left. That’s just staying with what you’re used to, what is normal to you.
Google has become established enough that the name has obtained a sense in itself. When switching to something else, the new tool has to convince in a way that the previous one doesn’t. Often, function isn’t enough if the form doesn’t fit.
Yeah it’s a weird fucking name and i didn’t like the search results of it nor of Google so I switched to Ecosia instead
When the leaked internal video came out about Google’s real vision, everyone said it is fake. It does not look that fake now.
Which video was this?
Thanks! I’ll give this a watch.
Apple Intelligence too. Thankfully you can still disable it
I’m being serious with this comment. In no way have I felt like Google has forced Gemini on me. I barely notice it exists. Can anyone give me examples?
They’ve stuffed it into every page in Google cloud and workspace.
I tried it in sheets one time and it literally made up fake data for my analysis. Never trusting that again.
It “messaged” me in Google Messages today introducing itself and how it could summarize text messages on my phone for me
Ah, I don’t use most of Google’s services, though I do use an Android device. I think my most used service is Drive. I haven’t seen it on there.
I accidentally clicked on their stupid popup one time and then got emails over and over welcoming me to Gemini. I don’t even have Google assistant installed.
My job uses the Google suite and it feels like it’s gotten a bit excessive recently. Just this week I have gotten multiple popups on my work email and in Docs and Sheets. It has been present in Chat for a few months.
Interesting. I don’t use Gmail (unless I have to) or the Google office suite. Makes sense.
Gemini ‘messaged’ me in google messages introducing itself a couple months ago. Just appeared like a normal text conversation with any other contact, but as soon as you click on it you’re presented with a wall of T&Cs.
Deleted the ‘conversation’ and it’s stayed gone; though there’s an option for it in settings.
The only other place I’ve see it is an on-screen reminder every time I use Google Assistant. (usually just triggering home automatons)
That’s why.
I don’t use Google messages, don’t use the Google Assistant… am barely aware that Gemini exists.
They “remind me” every time I use assistant on my phone with an on screen message. But that’s about it and though I find it annoying I don’t feel forced.
They remind me even when I don’t use assistant. I sometimes wake my phone and it’s the first screen I saw. I tried switching over and it sucks. Sometimes I say a voice command for something regarding google home (eg. Turn off the lights). Sometimes it correctly realized this is mean for Google home and will execute the command with Google home. Sometimes I get an error saying Gemini can’t do that yet. This is with the same exact prompt. It’s not idempotent.
I opted out when they first introduced it. So it’s not in use on my phone and never has been. My smart home devices are all older so nothing with Gemini built in. This may be the difference for me. I dunno.
The main smart speaker I use is a Lenovo Smart Display and it hasn’t received updates in years. It’s got physical switches for the mic and camera and my smart home stuff is on a separate network from everything else in my house on purpose.
I think the newest speaker I own is the set of Google home max’s and they don’t even sell those anymore. They’ve been disabled for mic so they’re only for casting to.
This works for me but my home is small and all I’ve really got is some Philips hue lights and a couple of smart blinds. I set up routines early on so I’m not really asking the assistant to do a lot of things using voice controls.
On my phone at work I use it when my hands are occupied, and I use it I’m the car (but my car isn’t equipped for Android Auto etc). So I think for me it’s probably just limited in what it can interact with to the point I don’t notice it much.
Same here tbh. I havea university google suite account and I’ve never noticed it there. I also use Google messages, and there was a button for it by default, but it was easily disabled.
My power button on my phone now opens Gemini… Every damn time it’s bumped. Press to wake the phone? Oh hello Gemini
Well that is annoying, but doesn’t sound like the expected behaviour of the power button. A long press, maybe, but just pressing it shouldn’t do that.
for months, every time i used google assistant to set a timer, and every few days without asking, i got push messages to use gemini instead of assistant on my phone. there is no way to disable those messages - they only go away if you have at least once activated gemini. btw, assistant functions like the timer DO NOT WORK if you use gemini; it’s really great service to push your costumers to install a feature to take away a feature that is used daily.
I actually did activate it to test that now, because I thought there is no way they’d leave that out… And it works! It set me a timer.
But yeah, that’s annoying. Very.
Well, my system language is not English, which might be a contributing factor. I assumed it would be the same in English, TIL.
That’d probably be it. Mine’s UK English.
Thats nothing, the Play Integrity API is trying to block usage by other operating systems like CalyxOS and Graphene. Imo much more insidious and opaque.
Ewwww
there is nothing forcing you to keep using google though
All of it is. Or pushing copilot into all Microsoft products like anyone is using this shit.
Every time I’ve opened an Office app this week it has given me some copilot welcome screen and opened it’s own sidebar. I tried to use it to proofread a word doc and got prompted to purchase a license. So they basically just filled 1/3 of my screen with an ad.
Wanted to say it feels like Microsoft doing same thing with Copilot, but at least you can disable that. At least on enterprise plans, home / small business apperently is a different story now.
I wasn’t able to disable Copilot in Office without threatening to cancel via my account management page. It’s only then that they give you the option to fall back to the originally priced plan that specifically doesn’t include Copilot. And even after that, Copilot apparently won’t be removed from my locally installed copies of the Office apps until my plan renewal date in April! I’m pretty sure I’m gonna use the time to transition all my documents to LibreOffice and fully cancel my MS Office plan before it renews.
Somehow I’ve never come across any of these things in my day to day. I hope I can casually avoid them for a long long time.
That’s how it is. I never even set up Gemini when my phone updated. I never used google assistant either.
Problem with Gemini is that is sucks badly in comparison with more mature solutions.
It really is terrible. I’ve tried a dozen times to get it to do anything that the free version of GPT can do…fails every time on the few things it even tries.
I tried to ask it how I could remove it, Gemini told me that in order for me to help it I needed to active some of the “smart” features I didn’t have active on my account, essentially helping do the opposite. It follows the ever increasing practice of trying to shove basically illegal behavior into “it’s just the algorithm, bro, there was no intent!”
Where are they putting it, chrome? Just use Firefox instead.
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My employer is switching from Microsoft to Google for office tools next month and they’ve been championing its availability to all of us. I’m not looking forward to it…
The article in this post tells the only way to get rid of it. If you use it for corporate, your IT people have to call and ask Google support to add the setting for you to be able to turn it off.
It is also on android phones and can’t be uninstalled or disabled.
Use a hardened Firefox, use a different search engine
I don’t even have chrome installed. I use Firefox and Duckduckgo. It in android phones and gsuite products that people have to use for work.You have to go to extreme lengths to uninstall on desktop as outlined in the article, and cannot uninstall or opt out of on android.
My power button on my phone now opens Gemini… Every damn time it’s bumped. Press to wake? Oh hello Gemini
Install LineageOS or e/os/ on your phone and bye bye Gemini 🙂
I have a Samsung A series, would it work on my phone too?
Which one? You can check officially supported here: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#samsung But it is possible that yours is unofficially supported. In this case you have to read xda forums.
It looks like I need a pc and use terminal. Shit. Though it was a bit more streamlined.
Unfortunately, yes, but that’s not hard. Some Samsung phones have installer for e/os/ (full degooglised).
The good news is that this may cure my laziness. I’ve been preparing to leave most of google service for a while now.
