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Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

tomshardware.com

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Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#71

Post by no-reply »

masalah wrote: post #65
jgalt212 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I in no way want to absolve Google, but that's the case for so many app permissions on Android. Turn off notifications, and two weeks later the same app your turned off notifications for is once again sending you notifications. It's beyond a joke.

Can you share some apps where this happens for you. I have rather the complete opposite experience where unused apps with permissions eventually lose said permissions.

This is normal, with newer versions of android (probably 10+) there is a feature that checks and removes unused permissions from apps in the last X days.

According to the OP here, it does seem like a pain in the butt to disable - https://support.google.com/android/thread/268170076/android-...

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#72

Post by ClumsyPilot »

meiraleal wrote: post #32
vouaobrasil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care much more about allowing my content to be used at all, despite any privacy concerns. I simply don't want one single AI model to train on my content.

[flagged]

Maybe the correct response is to burn down their office and if they don’t like it they can create their own data

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#73

Post by Retric »

padolsey wrote: post #61

There is a fundamentally interesting nuance to highlight. I don't know precisely what google is doing, but if they're just shuttling the content through a closed-loop deterministic LLM, then, much like a spellchecker, I see no issue. Sure, it _feels_ creepy, but it's just an algo. Perhaps someone can articulate the precise threshold of 'access' they wish to deny apps that we overtly use? And how would that threshold…

The issue isn’t doing something to your data, it’s what happens after that point.

People would be pissed if Android make everyone’s photos public, AI does this with extra steps. Train AI on X means everyone using that AI potentially has access to X with the right prompt.

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#74

Post by nerdjon »

Shocker, Google not going quite far enough with privacy and data access? They talk about it but its never quite far enough to avoid their own services accessing data.

We really need to get to the point that all data remotely stored needs to be encrypted and unable to be decrypted by the servers, only our devices. Otherwise we just allow the companies to mine the data as much as they want and we have zero insight into what they are doing.

Yes this requires the trust that they in fact cannot decrypt it. I don't have a good solution to that.

Any AI access to personal data needs to be done on device, or if it requires server processing (which is hopefully only a short term issue) a clear prompt about data being sent out of your device.

It doesn't matter if this isnt specifically being used to train the model at this point in time, it is not unreasonable to think that any data sent through Gemini (or any remote server) could be logged and later used for additional training, sitting plaintext in a log, or just viewable by testers.

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#75

Post by ttul »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40
nickstinemates wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes for every SaaS / cloud native company I think there will be a real shift back on prem with software delivered traditionally due to increased in shit like this (and also due to cost)

> there will be a real shift back on prem with software Not while we’re production constrained on the bleeding edge of GPUs.

… and that situation will persist until other vendors release consumer GPUs with significant VRAM. Nvidia craftily hamstrings the top consumer GPUs by restricting VRAM to 24GB. To get a bit more costs 3-5x. Only competition will fix this.

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#77

Post by ClumsyPilot »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #49
throwxxx5 wrote: post #31

[flagged]

Then consider me "delusational" (as you put it). I am unaware of "these corporations" -- which ones exactly? my answer doesn't hinge on you making that clear but you still should -- throwing their opponents into reeducation camps, or outright killing them.

Nobody living the west is under any threat from CCP.

and you absolute can end up up bankrupt, homeless or in prison from a data breach. Many people have

Also how is are remaining Boeing whistleblowers, how many of them believe their life is safe?

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#78

Post by silvaring »

I just want to add that gmail has a very sneaky 'add to drive' button that is way too easy to click when working with email attachments.

How long til gmail attachments get uploaded into drive by default through some obscure update that toggles everything to 'yes'?

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#79

Post by padolsey »

Retric wrote: post #73
padolsey wrote: post #61

There is a fundamentally interesting nuance to highlight. I don't know precisely what google is doing, but if they're just shuttling the content through a closed-loop deterministic LLM, then, much like a spellchecker, I see no issue. Sure, it _feels_ creepy, but it's just an algo. Perhaps someone can articulate the precise threshold of 'access' they wish to deny apps that we overtly use? And how would that threshold…

The issue isn’t doing something to your data, it’s what happens after that point. People would be pissed if Android make everyone’s photos public, AI does this with extra steps. Train AI on X means everyone using that AI potentially has access to X with the right prompt.

I don't think it's _training_ on your content. That would be a whole other (very horrifying) problem, yes.

Re: Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive PDF files without permission

#80

Post by chias »

drzaiusx11 wrote: post #17
vouaobrasil wrote: post #15

All AI should be opt-in, which includes both training and scanning. You should have to check a box that says "I would like to use AI features", and the accompanying text should be crystal clear what that means. This should be mandatory, enforced, and come with strict fines for companies that do not comply.

We also need a robots.txt extension for publicly accessable file exclusion from AI training datasets. iirc there's a nascent ai.txt but not sure if anyone follows it (yet)

I don't think `robots.txt` works on the basis of the crawlers wanting to do this to be nice, or "socially responsible" or anything. So I don't hold up much hope that anything similar can happen again.

Early search engines had a problem, which was that when they crawled willy nilly, people would block their IP addresses. Inventing this concept of `robots.txt` worked because search engines wanted something: to avoid IP blocks, which they couldn't easily get around. And site hosts generally wanted to be indexed.

Today it's WAY harder to block relevant IP addresses, so site hosts generally can't easily block a crawler that wants its data: there is no compromise to be found here, and the imbalance of power is much stronger. And many site hosts generally don't want to be crawled for free for AI purposes at all. Pretty much anyone who sets up an `ai.txt` uses it to just reject all crawling, so there is no reason for any crawler to respect it.

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