This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Turned off by default in EEA, UK, Japan and Switzerland, for anyone interested (had to login to find out).
Anyone wondering what they have in common: EU (i know its not the same as EEA, there are countries like Iceland non-member of EU but part of EEA and they have their own GDPR through their own Private Act) has GDPR, Japan has APPI, UK has UK-GDPR, Switzerland has FADP
Whats intriguing is that Canada has DCIA and Brazil has LGPD and I don't see it being mentioned to be turned off by default in either countries
Most email is short. I don't see a need to summarize it. Google is run by idiots and assholes.
Ai will write complicated long mails, you'll need an Ai to summarise it
If an email needs to be summarized, I'm not going to read it anyway.
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.
Don't worry, this stuff is why companies like Google want to build and run their own nuclear power plants. What could possibly go wrong?
You go ahead and waste resources on summarizing the 200 emails a day in my spam account, you fucking morons.
I agree fuck Google but also poor earth :(
buy domain
buy hosting
get email
use thunderbird
I run my own email and I have to say I wouldn't recommend it.
The biggest hassle is dealing with either Spamhaus or Microsoft, who apparently at random decide to put my IPs on blacklist, and who provide hurdles to working around this (for Spamhaus) or just say "no" (for Microsoft).
Would having aliases be a good way to bypass when a website denies your emails from your domain (which is known occurrence for who self-hosts their own email system)?
buy a computer
put my data in there
computer computes my data too much
FUCK
Why is it never the other way around? I’m sick of EULA updates silently enrolling me into things i never asked for
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
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.
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.
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.
So this is why I got an email that was completely wrong.
I told a guy I used to work for that I moved and it’s the perfect place to help him and his company.
He replied that he hopes I found a house where I used to live.
wtf it’s like he never read the email at all, now that this AI trash was added, the email makes sense.
I guess he is fucked and doesn’t get the help he needs for his company.
Ok this is the first step where I feel an actual urge to look for Gmail alternatives. (Been a Gmail user since like 2007.) I'm a desktop-only Gmail user, but I can see where this is going... :/ Also heavy user of Google Drive and Sheets, so it's going to be annoying if I have to replace all of them :/
For me it was: Gmail to Tuta, Drive to Filen.io (some cheap German guys). But Sheets would be the most difficult. Maybe Zoho or Infomaniak? Infomaniak has the complete package IIRC.
Cool, how do I disable this shit feature?
Stop using the shit service.
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)!
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!
Why would you use Gmail in the first place?
I have been moving away from all of the big name companies for big name products.
It's a shame, because I used to be very supportive of Google.
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.
Would opting out actually do anything except keep you from using the feature? Pretty certainly they will still let the ai read your emails if there is any benefit to google in it, but you just wont be seeing the summary.
If you read the article, it says this only applies to people that already have premium google office stuff already. The 90% of people with regular gmail accounts aren't affected by this. For now at least.
Well, let's break it down with a little humor and a nod to the inevitable AI email overlords!
Sure, the article points out that the premium Google Workspace users get a special treatment—like being offered champagne instead of soda—but if you're part of the 90% rolling with regular Gmail, you're still enjoying your familiar, free soda pop (for now). However, don't get too comfortable: whether you're sipping premium champagne or pop, Google's AI is always lurking in the background, ready to "swallow" your emails and extract insights like a digital detective. In other words, even if you're not part of the fancy club, your emails are still part of the grand data buffet.
So while the article might claim it's all rainbows and free soda for most, the truth is that Google is perfecting their AI trick regardless of your account type. It's like distinguishing between first-class and economy on a flight—different levels of service, but everyone's still on the same plane, and the in-flight entertainment (that is, AI data crunching) is serving up free snacks to all!
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
