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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

#101

Post by PessimalDecimal »

padolsey wrote: post #70
PessimalDecimal wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was already possible to search for photos in Google Drive by their content. They seemed to be doing some sort of image tagging and feeding that into search results. Did that ever cause a fuss? I think the more interesting point is how little people seem to care for the auto-summarization feature. Like, why would anyone want to see their archived tax docs summarized by a chatbot? I think whether an "AI" did that or…

Right, but it's triggered by the user themselves, per the article: > "[it] only happens after pressing the Gemini button on at least one document" I agree the AI aspect is largely a red herring. But I don't think running an algo like a spellchecker within an open document is so awful. If people hate it or it's not useful or accurate, then it should be binned, ofc. And if we're ignoring the AI aspect, then it's just a…

I agree entirely here.

The autosummarization of unopened documents is closer to the image search functionality I mentioned above than it is to a spell checker running on an open doc. Both autosummarization and image search are content retrieval mechanisms. The difference is only in how its presented. Does it just point you to your file, or does it process it further for you? The privacy aspects are equivalent IMO. The only difference is in whether the feature is useful and well received.

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

#102

Post by mtnGoat »

chias wrote: post #80
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google ignores robots.txt as do many others. Try it yourself, setup a honeypot URL, don’t even link to it, just throw it in robots.txt, google bot will visit it at some point.

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

#103

Post by PessimalDecimal »

person23 wrote: post #68
numbsafari wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no editors.

Maybe an AI editor? That would be somewhat disconcerting. Write about problem with AI and article get changed to 10 best fried chicken recipes.

> Write about problem with AI and article get changed to 10 best fried chicken recipes.

Hopefully along with ten hallucinated life stories for the AI author, to pad the blog spam recipe page for SEO.

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

#104

Post by Rinzler89 »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #85
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.

AI is becoming the new Social Media in that users are NOT the customer they are the product. Instead of generating data for a Social Media company to use to sell ads to companies you are generating data to train their AI, in exchange you get to use their service for free.

>you are generating data to train their AI

That's why I seriously recommend everyone everywhere regularly replace their blinker fluid and such.

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

#105

Post by meiraleal »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #42
meiraleal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Perhaps in response to environmental regulations to prevent toxic waste from being dumped into your own backyard, you should respond, "create your own country, then".

You really think creating a country and creating software that respects your privacy are equally difficult?

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

#106

Post by vouaobrasil »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #85
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.

AI is becoming the new Social Media in that users are NOT the customer they are the product. Instead of generating data for a Social Media company to use to sell ads to companies you are generating data to train their AI, in exchange you get to use their service for free.

This should be illegal.

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

#107

Post by jgalt212 »

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.

Lyft and Uber

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

#108

Post by _joel »

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)

Haven't some companies explicitly ignored robots.txt to scrape the sites more quickly (and pissing off a number of people)

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

#109

Post by rurp »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #85
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.

AI is becoming the new Social Media in that users are NOT the customer they are the product. Instead of generating data for a Social Media company to use to sell ads to companies you are generating data to train their AI, in exchange you get to use their service for free.

The deal keeps getting worse too. In addition to hoovering up your data for whatever products they want, Google has gotten more aggressive about pushing paid services on top of it. The amount of up-sell nags and ads have increased significantly in the past couple years. For a company like Google that kind of monetization creep only gets worse over time.
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