this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023

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Google’s Bard AI can now access Gmail, Drive, Docs, and more (www.pcworld.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Geert to c/technology

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[–] Buffalox 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (12 children)

If it passes.

I hope it passes.

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[–] Z4rK 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 [email protected] resolves to google. This has made #email mostly dead to me.

[–] Z4rK 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year 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 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year 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..

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

They certaintly did, and already used AI to comb through it for their monitized stalking campaign. I think the only difference now is you can now make use of this somehow too, but I only read the headline lol.

[–] reagansrottencorpse 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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 12 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 8 points 1 year 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 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] ShittyRedditWasBetter 5 points 1 year ago

🤷‍♂️ you weren't going to pay for it, gotta pay for compute somehow.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Nothing could possili go wrong

[–] Doorbook 15 points 1 year ago

These companies just push hard for people to leave them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (14 children)

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 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Geez! Who does that?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Old people

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] PastorHaggis 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year 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...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Proton

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Mailbox, posteo, zoho, skiff...

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

Edit: openboard autocorrect.

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