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submitted 2 years ago by Geert@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 76 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I wouldn't be surprised if Alphabet has used data from all these sources all the time.

That's actually the reason I don't use gmail except for registering Android, or use google calender, or google search except occasionally. I have my youtube account separate from my Android, and I don't allow any cloud services, like photo or any other storage or sync services.

The power Google can gain from using these things in combination is huge, just like Facebook influenced the 2016 US presidential election, Google/Alphabet could use this for both political and financial gains to an enormous degree, that would have been completely unheard of prior to Internet becoming widely used.

[-] huginn@feddit.it 12 points 2 years ago

They explicitly stated that they do not.

They have a lot of rules around data control and privacy that are followed internally because the engineers care to toe the line of public statements.

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

For the last three decades, tech companies have been operating in a "Ask for forgiveness, not permission" mentality.

Microsoft didn't get such a large monopoly by playing fair. Neither did Google, Amazon, Uber, etc.

They have always said one thing, the courts found it to be inaccurate, and then they go "Oops" and pay $500 million "cost of doing business" while making 1000+ billion.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

Except you can have one account to cover all those Google services. Meaning it must be trivial for Alphabet/Google to do the same.

Just because your average engineer isn't allowed to, doesn't mean they can't do it at "special requests", like law enforcement or "research".

To put it another way, it's to much potential power to entrust with a single company.

[-] LostDeer@infosec.pub 56 points 2 years ago

Can't wait for bard to join the google graveyard with stadia once the ai fad passes!

[-] dukk@programming.dev 22 points 2 years ago

If it passes.

I hope it passes.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

It's already starting to, the AI groups of devs basically showed off an alpha to their CEOs, then those CEOs thought it's game changing....while the devs were like "no it's an alpha/pre-alpha and is really dumb"...but the CEOs rolled with it and are now finding how bad it is...so it's been getting slowly dropped. It's %100 a fad and has limited applications. It's really cool tech and I have used it, but it's not something that's going to replace many people.

[-] tdawg@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

This is only true for generative and sumariziation systems that are directly consumer facing. Current AI systems have a myriad of applications for internal tooling and B2b type systems. At my work we've built a vast array of tools using all kinds of modern AI that have delighted our clients. Things that previously wouldn't have been possible for the average small buisness like filling out patient information by voice.

People like to shit on AI because they think of the thing google search uses or ChatGPT but it really is changing the world just not all at once. There will be more consumer facing advencments but more than likely these will come in the forms of things like existing products that get augmented in some way to aid usability (AI tooling is fantastic at facilitating accessibility).

AI is never going away it is here to stay and it is continuing to grow and advance

[-] whofearsthenight@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

Agreed. My lead at work wanted us to start trying/using Cursor.so (VS Code fork with AI as a builtin feature) and it's been pretty transformative. I don't see a lot of "hey write me a program that does x" but in my (limited) use of this, a simple "why doesn't this function work" has been pretty amazing.

I have a feeling this is a branding issue more than anything. When you could ask google plain language questions a decade ago and get responses, that seemed amazing. This to me seems like that but more advanced and I just hope they sort out the truthiness and privacy implications. On the one hand, I want the tech to advance, on the other, I would like it to not be such a privacy nightmare.

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[-] mephiska@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

I mean who doesn't like a search engine that very convincingly and assertively lies to you? They all come off as very authoritative while also being so very wrong more often than not.

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[-] Z4rK@lemmy.world 50 points 2 years ago

Man I can’t wait to get 100% out of gmail.

[-] ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io 15 points 2 years ago

Just curious- what exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean abandoning/trashing your google account, or do you mean also refusing to send email to gmail recipients?

Personally I’ve gone all the way. Ditching the Google acct was just the 1st step (which implies also ditching Google Playstore). Then I quit sending email to gmail & outlook recipients. Then I went further and do an MX lookup on all email addresses to verify whether a vanity address like bob@lastname.com resolves to google. This has made #email mostly dead to me.

[-] Z4rK@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

I won’t stop sending to Google recipients. I have moved my email to Proton, but because of lacking search functionality there I have not yet migrated historic emails.

I’ve stopped using other Google services and deleted data except for Maps and YouTube. Maps I can probably get rid of. YouTube I’ll keep but may be able to use a more fake account.

[-] clark@midwest.social 5 points 2 years ago

I was stuck with a Google account because I still wanted to view Youtube, but then I found alternatives like Piped and Freetube that let you import your subscriptions. Maybe that’s an option, if you’re interested.

[-] blabber6285@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 years ago

I'm wondering what was the email usage like in the first place if you can just choose to stop sending to most people.

But to be honest, I've only sent handful of emails from my personal account within the same number of years.

[-] juniorneptune@lemmy.world 40 points 2 years ago

What makes anyone think google didn't have the access before anyway?

[-] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 years ago

They did. Its not about that

Now you can throw in a boring pdf, into your drive, and have bard read it and summarize each chapter. For example.

I asked it to read a report i have written for school and summarize it and give mr a few pointers where i could improve it. It was nice and speedy.

Granted the report isnt super long.

Wonder how well it does on a 700 page pdf..

[-] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 37 points 2 years ago

Me, who's had a Gmail account as my main email for twenty plus years. 😞

[-] vale@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 years ago

I've been meaning to switch off of Google for months now, but never had the time to properly research what exactly that entails

[-] plz1@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

I was primarily using Gmail and Youtube Music and the switch was fairly easy. Apple Music was a better replacement than the other competitors, and Proton Mail was super easy. Paying for both makes me "not the product, but an actual customer". Forwarded Gmail to Proton in about 30 seconds, and replaced Chrome with Firefox. Duck Duck Go isn't a "perfect" replacement for Google Search, but it's good enough.

[-] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Proton looks pretty good, but all the paid Google services show that paying is not enough to be seen as “not the product, but an actual customer” these days.

[-] plz1@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

Proton itself has no access to the encrypted content of your email. Also, they are not an ad company, so their product isn't you.

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[-] silentknyght@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

Curious what you decide. I feel trapped. My Gmail has been my primary account for almost 20 years. With that kind of longevity, switching would be extremely disruptive.

[-] berg@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago

When I did it I just forwarded my mails to the new service (fastmail) and changed mail address whenever a mail got forwarded in. When I didn't receive a forwarded mail for a year or so I deleted my old mail and never looked back.

If you use a password manager this get easier though, since you can just lookup where the old mail is used.

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[-] filcuk@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 years ago

I kept Gmail, but gradually switched over to proton. Eventually, year or two later, it's full of emails I don't glcare about. Start now and take it slow.

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[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 8 points 2 years ago

Gmail is only 19 years old, but okay.

[-] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

I've had it since it came out, so 19 years then I guess. Cut me some slack.

[-] Norgur@kbin.social 35 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

If you choose to use the Workspace extensions, your content from Gmail, Docs, and Drive is not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads, or used to train the Bard model.

Yeah... really comforting, Google. Really comforting.

[-] huginn@feddit.it 5 points 2 years ago

I mean... what else could they offer to make it more comforting?

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[-] sirico@feddit.uk 23 points 2 years ago
[-] Engywuck@lemm.ee 15 points 2 years ago

I mean, at this point I find very difficult to believe that people willingly putting their entire life in free Google accounts don't know that they're basically ads meat anyway. The outrage makes no sense.

[-] Bluesheep@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Without going to whole hog and hosting my own infrastructure, what are some good alternatives?

[-] Engywuck@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Mailbox, posteo, zoho, skiff...

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[-] Doorbook@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago

These companies just push hard for people to leave them.

[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 years ago

I know people who have their passwords on a google doc or email passwords. I foresee a lot of accounts getting hacked once people can crack the right prompts for the LLM.

[-] baruchin@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago
[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago
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[-] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 2 years ago

I mean, if Bard can access those things, that means Google already had access in the first place. I also don't mind if that means I get to enjoy a better service overall.

The things I don't want Google to know about I have separate anyways

[-] ares35@kbin.social 21 points 2 years ago

narrator: 'google knows about those things, too.'

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[-] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 2 years ago

Switched to outlook but soon found out that some of your emails arent even received. That occured when I was trying to sign up to this lemmy instance. Luckily the admin was a very friendly person who understood the situation and manually approved my signup.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 10 points 2 years ago

Outlook is just choosing another big tech. Why not something like protonmail or tutanota?

[-] PastorHaggis@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I'm starting to switch over to Proton. I haven't paid for it yet but my plan is to start paying and potentially grab usernames on other sites so I can have a consistent email across any site I decide to use.

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[-] kureta@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

openai's chat gpt, and microsoft's bing flavor of chat gpt both have android apps. google's bard does not. that is all...

[-] hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Good luck using all my spam I get on my gmail inbox to serve me ads that get blocked instantly.

Edit: openboard autocorrect.

[-] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Queue the I'm in danger meme

[-] regbin_@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

This is super cool. No longer need to fiddle with third-party LLM APIs.

For those worried that your emails contents might get leaked, I'm pretty sure they're not using your email content to train, but only use it as context. LLMs are stateless, as soon you you start a new chat, it forgets everything from before.

[-] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 4 points 2 years ago

If you believe Google isn't planning on eventually training Bard on Gmail, then I have a half dozen bridges to sell you.

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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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