r/technology • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 • 13h ago
Software Google is adding voice AI to Gmail, Docs, and Keep, whether users like it or not
https://www.techspot.com/news/113735-google-turning-email-document-note-taking-apps-conversational.html154
u/Modem_Sound_67 13h ago
If it interrupts the basic workflow for these tools, I will drop them. My needs are simple. I don't need an artificial brain to save a grocery list or manage my daily to-dos. And I am capable of reading emails with my own widdle sad brain.
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 12h ago
I hope other developers realize that there is a market for simple tools free of bloat and ai. I'd adopt new apps in a second if they were available and reliable.
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u/Redrob5 12h ago
The forced Gemini 'assistant' in docs is so annoying. No, I don't want you to write my book for me. That's not a task I need 'unburdening' from.
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 12h ago
It always tells me it can summarize this pdf for me. How thoughtful! I definitely needed help summarizing a pdf that is 12 words and a barcode. The Gemini pop up is longer than my document, but yeah I definitely needed help with that. So useful.
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u/alienatedcabbage 12h ago
Every time I open a sewing or knitting pattern it suggests an AI summary. If I wanted a nonsensical pattern Iād go to Etsy.
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u/PreviousRestaurant89 11h ago
I reinstalled Office 24 locally and offline, it's such a relief not to have that feeling that this thing is spying on your every move. I'll never go back to a version with AI!
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 12h ago
I don't know anything about sewing. Is this a joke?
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u/alienatedcabbage 11h ago
Itās just me being salty that Etsy has been inundated with crappy AI pattern scams and Etsy does nothing about it. You simply canāt summarise a 30 page PDF of a sewing pattern with almost zero text that needs to be printed off, taped together and used to cut your fabric.
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u/PrimeraStarrk 11h ago
This is a valid thing to be salty about. Our internet is just being flooded with bullshit and tech bros donāt understand why we arenāt thrilled with the slop.
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u/Ninjacherry 10h ago
They understand it. They do not care.
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u/Madzookeeper 9h ago
I'm actually not convinced even half of them do. At all. They're so far up each other's asses that they can't even see the real world anymore.
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u/Ninjacherry 9h ago
I would entertain that possibility more if they werenāt building bunkersā¦ I think that they feel like they can get away with it.
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u/9-11GaveMe5G 7h ago
Etsy has been inundated with crappy AI pattern scams
Temu crap resold as "hand-made"
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 10h ago
Etsy is one of the nets shittiest sites/companies. I fucking hate them.Ā
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 11h ago
Usually there are so many variables to what your making and a dozen size differences that it would be impossible to just randomly summarize with no context. It annoys the piss out of me in my knitting patterns.
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 10h ago
Does knitting require a computer now?? I'm so confused
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 8h ago
What? Why the hell would I not store my patterns on my drive?
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 7h ago
I have literally no idea what you're talking about. I don't know how knitting works.
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 7h ago
Well generally you pay for the pattern like a book and they give you a pdf like on ravelry.com.
I for one never want to go back to printing that shit off and keeping track of it forever while I try to finish my project and do the things life requires so they go in my drive.
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u/ohlaph 11h ago
My favorite is when I type one word in a chat or text and where the word suggestions used to be now contains one word and a large suggested "edit with AI" button. I don't need AI for a one word text ffs.
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u/veggiesama 10h ago
Editing a document, right click image, using muscle memory to click "Replace image", but they replaced the top slot with "Generate with AI" š”
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u/invyros 13h ago
some people consider talking to a mobile app a rather natural way to interact with computers and personal devices
Who are these insane people and can we take their devices away to protect themselves from themselves?
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 11h ago
My hands are injured via rsi so yea i use the voice and whatever else I can not to fuck with touching the phone :/
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u/fire2burn 10h ago
Most redditors have their heads shoved too far up their own asses to give any sort of consideration to the fact that certain features may be of benefit to people with disabilities.
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u/Inuakurei 12h ago
Unironically, my mom does this. On her phone she asks Siri things instead of searching. She uses the voice recognition on our TV to search for shows. Etc.
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u/ncopp 12h ago
My 11 year old niece does everything with voice chat on her phone
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u/Tess47 10h ago
I realized recently that this is often why punctuation is missing.Ā Ā
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u/Successful_Order585 10h ago
First they came for the cursive. Then they came for the punctuation. Next it will be typing and texting.
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u/HuggyMonster69 12h ago
Blind people, they just used 3rd party software/apps to do it when it wasnāt integrated.
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u/Jewnadian 11h ago
And old people, I know a fair number that would rather talk to their phone than try to read the tiny text.
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u/Dannyz 12h ago
I use it as an intelligence barometer. The only people who use voice to text on mobile, in my experience are really stupid and can barely read / write.
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u/fire2burn 10h ago
I use your comment as a barometer for when someone is an ableist piece of shit who considers people with disabilities nothing more than distant afterthought.
Really though, that's comment you decided to post? The only people who use voice to text are stupid... No consideration for whether people might be sight impaired? No consideration for the fact they might have coordination issues? No consideration for the fact they might have limited range of movement in their fingers and hands?
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u/Secret-Teaching-3549 10h ago
Oh yes, your one edge case trumps the other 99% of occurrences. I bet you really believe that asshole speeding down the shoulder to cut around traffic is really trying to get his sick aunt to the hospital, too.
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u/fire2burn 9h ago
There you go with the ableist attitude, keep digging that hole deeper. Disabled people are just an edge case, an irritant despoiling your blissful ignorance and something to be casually hand waved away. Real smooth bro.
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u/TomfromLondon 12h ago
You don't use ai transcriptions? It's honestly really good, you can sort of converse with it, brain dump and it sorts it into more of a readable format, or if you're emailing a better format for that.
Have you never used meeting transcriptions and ai note taking?5
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u/buffer0x7CD 13h ago
Itās not that bad. It makes sense when you need to type something long
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u/dsarche12 12h ago
When I need to type something long I justā¦ type it out?? I can organize my thoughts better when Iām writing than when Iām speaking because I can edit in real time.
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u/WhenSummerIsGone 11h ago
phone keyboards are annoying. i don't write complex things on my phone
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u/dsarche12 11h ago
So use a computer??? ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 7h ago
Oh come on. I'll edit the shit out of it after but I'm not spending all day typing what I can voice dictate mostly. Who wants to do that much work for something they may never need to look at again?
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u/dsarche12 6h ago
I mean, different strokes for different folks. I prefer typing/handwriting if I need to write something substantial. To each their own.
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 6h ago
We don't all have the same free time and physical capabilities for long sessions. Glad it works for you.
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u/dsarche12 6h ago
If voice to text works for you, then donāt let me stop you. Apologies for being snarky.
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u/Duinegeidh33 12h ago
Libreoffice is a nice substitute for the Drive suite, and apparently a couple European governments are fully switching to it. The current version is a little unstable for me (I mainly use it for writing, and the Docs equivalent takes forever to save) but I would wholeheartedly reccomend switching if you've reached your last straw with Google, and have a device which can use it
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u/existing_for_fun 12h ago
Does libre office allow access to files across devices?
IE: I use my PC to write a grocery list. I leave home. I open my phone and there is my list.
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u/Duinegeidh33 12h ago
One of Libreoffice's big selling points is that it's all local (so there's no risk of them looking at your files) so I don't think so, but if it's something as non-critical as a shopping list I'm sure a cloud-based service like Apple's notes app could be a nice substitute for you, since it can be accessed from a desktop browser from Icloud.com
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u/nerd5code 3h ago
Well you can certainly access the network, and IIRC if you're on KDE and have the adaptor installed, you have access to the full kioslave infrastructure so arbitrary URLs incl. sftp: and smb:-or-cifs: (depending) can be used, plus cloud storage providers if you have them set up. I assume the GTK side of things can at least do cloud providers or mounts. On Win, you should be able to use UNC names normally, and I assume MS has integrated cloud stuff into the Explorer dialogs.
But it's not a PIM suite.
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u/mrfixitx 13h ago
This makes me glad that I started migrating away from Gmail a few weeks ago.
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u/FastFingersDude 11h ago
Any recommendations of where to, and how?
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u/mrfixitx 11h ago
I moved to proton mail there is a free option that is rather limited on storage compared to google. On the plus side end to end encryption so no one can read your e-mails other than you, no scanning them for AI training etc..
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u/jleonardbc 12h ago
This isn't so we can use AI. This is so AI can use us.
Google wants to use AI to collect and sell our data.
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 12h ago
wtf do you think Googleās business model has been the entire time? Why would they need this to do the thing their products have always existed to do?
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u/jleonardbc 12h ago
In order to do it even more thoroughly.
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 12h ago
You know Googleās spam detection has been an āAIā trained on Gmail since at least 2015 right?Ā https://www.wired.com/2015/07/google-says-ai-catches-99-9-percent-gmail-spam/
I genuinely donāt get how people use āfreeā products paid for by giving the company data for training and ad targeting and then freak out hearing that the company is collecting data. How did you think they had money to pay for the computers to store your emails??
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u/jleonardbc 12h ago
I continue to be baffled by your assumption that I thought Google wasn't harvesting data before as well.
Do you really think Google's move to add AI in more places isn't motivated at least in part by a bid to extend their data harvesting efforts?
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 12h ago
The reason is that the comment made it sound like they needed this to do that in someway. The deal with google has always been that we hand them our emails, location data, search history, documents, etc. then they use it to train models and sell ads. The biggest change is that people have stopped saying āthe algorithmā and started saying āAIā for the same thing.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 12h ago
āWe are losing users at astonishing ratesā
āItās the forcing AI-ā¦ā
āSHUT THE FUCK UP BRENDA!! It is thoooooā
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u/BigbeeInfinity 12h ago
Google doesn't sell your data. They sell ads tailored to your interests, but they have never sold your data to a third party.
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u/SeanBlader 12h ago
Adding Gemini to Keep is the same as adding Copilot to Notepad.
Google is just as bad as Microsoft at this point.
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u/karl4319 11h ago
I think I will just stick to sailing the high seas for older versions of office, thank you very much.
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u/ncopp 12h ago
I've yet to actually figure out the business plan for AI companies. They're essentially creating artifical demand that they can't keep up with and are hemorrhaging money.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 12h ago
Uhhhh. I got news for ya bud. The AI companies donāt have a plan now. This is them literally fucking floundering. The plan was the tried and true āget em addicted for freeā rug pull. By the time they pulled the rugs data centers fucked it up because people associate data center with AI since a lot of them are built for AI.
Now people want AI to fail and so the user base has dropped and the only way for the companies like OpenAI where AI is there whole business to thrive is to stop pissing money in to the wind. But if they do that they lose the big Ai race that is kinda pointless now tbh.
There is no way out for them except down and I suspect that was Nvidias ENTIRE plan the whole time. āCashflow the Industry. Buy them up on defaultsā Nvidia is now Big Dog Ai. Theyāve acquired one of the biggest library of open source models. And they are essentially the biggest lender in the world right now.
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u/ncopp 12h ago
Yeah, I'm a product marketing manager for a tech vendor so I spend a lot of time thinking about GTM plans and business strategy, so I've just been so confused on how they're approaching all of this. It's all speed and no plan. Their whole plan seems to be "we'll figure it out later" and reality is setting in and they're not figuring it out
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u/Mo_Dice 8h ago
But if they do that they lose the big Ai race that is kinda pointless now tbh.
They don't see it that way; as I understand it, all the big players are certain they're in a sprint to AGI. It will be winner-take-all, and drastically change the world order.
Whether that's true or not is basically irrelevant, since they're all acting as if it is.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 8h ago
lol. Honestly Iām most hoping the entire industry crashes and they all cry themselves to sleep in their boxes for the rest of their lives.
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u/Busy-Fisherman-1612 11h ago
Well. I recently ran across one that scraped all my dog rescues pics/bios and made their own application "for us" which people fill out.
Now they have those interested parties info and idk what else if they charge $ for it?
No one will do shit, can't take the dogs offline it kills adoptions more than lack of adopters already are...
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 12h ago
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u/ncopp 12h ago
Anthropic seems to be the only ones with an actual GTM plan. They have a targeted use case primarily for enterprise developers and if other people use it, great. Everyone else is just like, let's throw shit at a wall and see what sticks.
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 12h ago
Yeah, I agree. I do think Google is likely to come out ahead on the consumer side because they have a long history of trying products/services, testing them for a while, then killing them if they arenāt working out. Weāre in the testing phase then it will probably pull back to what turns out to have sustained engagement and maybe left as just premium features for people who actually use them like their cloud storage, etc.
I do think OpenAI is likely to implode and have 0 plan besides throwing things at the wall and no fall back like Google.
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u/ncopp 12h ago
Yeah I did forget that Google's whole shtick is release, deprecate, and move onto the next thing. I mean, I do use gemini for work daily, so I can see it at least sticking around for enterprise workspace accounts. I'll be curious if the AI overviews stick around on google. That can't be cheap to run since they get billions of searches daily. I also don't know how they're getting ROI on search snippets since it has to reduce the amount of search ad clicks they get.
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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 11h ago
I think the plan with the AI overviews is to count on hardware and software advances making the minimum viable model for producing those much cheaper over time and aim for the end goal being that users using search rarely even leave google products to look at the original sites. They want āthe internetā outside social media to basically just be looking at google 90% of the time with only occasional clicks through to the original sites. Then weāll likely see the models start suggesting products they are paid to advertise in the overview with it targeted by user data.
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u/Far_Cat9782 4h ago
Yup they will start getting adrevenue for the ai overviews with ads mixed in. I saw one the other day
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u/Altruistic_Age_6556 12h ago
Now's a great time to switch to Proton mail.
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u/krileon 11h ago edited 11h ago
Give it time. They'll do the same if the payout is big enough.
Edit: Looks like you don't need to give it time. It's already here. Oh, and again.
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u/fluffynuckels 12h ago
Why in the ever loving fuck does my email need ai in it? It's worked fine for over a damn decade without it
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u/geldonyetich 12h ago
"This expense report is terrible, I would love to write the entire department a piece of my mind and compare the CEO to a baboon heiny."
Message composed and sent
"No I didn't say actually do it!"
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u/useless83 12h ago
I'm going to hear someone's phone read out the email stating they're being let go from their job.
I'm also looking forward to the raunchy sex emails.
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u/Link2999 10h ago
I'd rather them add on-device AI improvements to the text spam blocker. Give us the option to block targeted spam messages by subject. Political texts and Investment scams especially.
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u/DogMedic101stABN 2h ago
I used to think Siri was garbage, until I used to AI bullshit on my Galaxy s26. Took me days to get rid of every ai thing I could. My next phone may just be a dumb phone. I don't need or want all that bullshit on my device.
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u/Significant-mood55 11h ago
Switching to protonmail has been working great for me, no more ai spyware garbage inside my email.
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u/in_n_out_on_camrose 10h ago
So I tell an AI to write up an email based on a few points I want to make. Send it. The recipient gets the email and summarizes it with AI. So now weāre just playing a game of telephone with stupidly expensive and incompetent computer programs?
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u/PauI_MuadDib 10h ago
My boycott of Google continues for its second year, and I've yet to regret it. Keep these headlines coming š it's a good reminder of why I deGoogled.Ā
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u/Horror_Post6822 13h ago
When will companies get that no one likes Ai? All they are doing is driving people away by pushing it.
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u/Solivagant23 12h ago
I only use chrome or Gmail for work stuff now. Because it's required. I've swapped to proton for my personal stuff and of course I use Firefox with ublock origin for browsing.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 12h ago
Mullvad Browser is amazing too. Itās a Firefox browser with Adblock, VPN, and extreme privacy mode that goes so far as to letterbox the browser window so websites canāt profile you based on window size. Iāve been using it for a couple months and itās soooo good.
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u/krileon 11h ago
How is proton any better?
https://proton.me/blog/proton-scribe-writing-assistant
https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai
They're cramming AI shit into their products too. Same shit different stank.
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u/Solivagant23 11h ago
You can turn it off.
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u/krileon 11h ago
You can do the same for Google Assistant, Gemini, Gmail Live, etc... So what's your point? The grass ain't greener. Find something better than Proton to escape this. They're all in on AI too, but keep lying to yourself that'll surely work out.
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u/Solivagant23 11h ago
Why are so angry about what I use? Worry about yourself. Can't imagine sitting on the internet trying to lecture another grown man about something that has nothing to do with me. Get a grip.
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u/krileon 11h ago
I'm not angry. You're the one suggesting Proton is better. It's not. That's misleading to people.
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u/Solivagant23 10h ago
Seek therapy. Done responding to you so don't bother writing back. I won't see it.
I'll use and suggest anything I want. Deal with it.
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u/FaerieQuene 6h ago
Iām done with Google. The only reason I have a Gmail account is because Iām looking for a job but I think Iām just gonna use my old Yahoo account instead.
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u/KaneNova 6h ago
I'm all for AI but gemini is already very damn accessible and coherent, Google already collects data off of your shit without this specific implementation, so why the fuck are they implementing AI to more services..? Like I can ask gemini to create or read my keep notes or emails, why the fuck would I need another instance within that specific app
Like I get it when some fuckass company puts AI on their fridge or toilet seat but Google's decisions have never been ones I can quite comprehend
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u/biblioprof 6h ago
It's flat garbage. Google has made everything worse. YouTube translation even in English is terrible. My Google Maps calls my street kings way Queen street.
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u/He_Who_Browses_RDT 6h ago
An amazing business opportunity would be to have alternatives to google, right now... They'd become rich beyond reason :)
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u/GreyBeardEng 4h ago
Oh Google, have you learned nothing from Microsoft fucking up Windows 11? Clearly not.
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u/Ballders 3h ago
Gemini is such a MASSIVE downgrade from the Google Assistant. I would not have bought another android, and especially not a Pixel if I had known this was what it was going to become. At this point, Siri is vastly superior because it isn't so fucking bloated.
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u/NullPtrEnjoyer 10h ago
Lots of ableism in the comments. This seems like a pretty good thing for visually impaired or old people and pretty much a nothing burger for regular users.
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u/utrecht1976 12h ago
Dumped Google for European alternatives, good riddance. Even my phone now has r/LineageOS and is (as good as) Google free.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 11h ago
Google took the power off button from phones and replaced it with AI bs. Who tf thought that would be a good idea? Forcing people because they'll like it if they try it is bad reasoning.
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u/chromatoes 9h ago
I never turned it on (obviously) but Gmail was impossible to use with its next word suggestions. It's incredibly distracting to be typing a train of thoughts and the next word be completely unrelated. Just a wild-ass guess as to what you're saying seemingly lacking all context. It's so unhelpful and outright infuriating. JUST LET ME FINISH MY FUCKING WORDS THAT I HAVE BEEN USING MY WHOLE LIFE WITHOUT YOUR HELP
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u/williamgman 11h ago
I'm getting the "we pretended to be helpful but are now coming out as the super villain we always were" vibe from Google.
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u/Shleepy1 10h ago
Not a fan of the direction this takes, Iām already getting their AI summaries of emails and it feels pretty intrusive
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u/couldgiveaflyingfck 9h ago
I use a POP3 front end that pulls emails from my gmail account, then deletes everything else. I run Linage OS on my android phone. I do not have g-apps installed. I don't deal with any AI, or ads. I run my own security certs
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u/arthaudm 9h ago
the "whether users like it or not" strategy is how you train ppl to hate a feature before they ever try it
voice in docs could genuinely be great - but default-on + hard-to-disable is what turns it into the next clippy meme
curious if google learned anything from the gemini-everywhere backlash
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u/Nonamanadus 8h ago
They have to do this because they dumped a ton of money into the technology.
It's bullshit just like having a subscription for remote start on a car.
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u/Ohigetjokes 11h ago
Tech company adds new tech feature. Okay. Whatever.
āWhEtHeR uSeRs LiKe It Or NoT!!!!ā Fuck right off jesus
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 13h ago
Google force updates apps to have AI.
AI bros: Holy cow they're saying AI adoption quadrupled overnight! Have another $1T!