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Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

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Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#61

Post by xp84 »

apparent wrote: post #5

What surprises me most about gmail and AI is that they seem really quite bad at filtering out obvious spam. I get so many messages from people I have never heard from, on relatively new domains, with endings like "if this isn't relevant for you right now, say "not now" and I'll not circle back" (a clear attempt to allow unsubscribe without using the word). How is it that they haven't figured out how to stop these mes…

Do you suppose they are running the messages through any LLM? I don't know. I would guess it's too much volume to run all mail through a "good" model, but no idea whether it would be feasible to run mail through the kind of dumb model that generates "AI Overviews."

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#62

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

Sebguer wrote: post #49

I often think about leaving gmail, but it's not clear what the better option out there is, that doesn't create a bunch of pain in terms of not having good replacements for the rest of the ecosystem.

Your google account still works for drive if you switch from gmail to fastmail or proton or whatever. If you associate it with a domain you control you can even move the same email address between providers.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#63

Post by Zardoz84 »

apparent wrote: post #5

What surprises me most about gmail and AI is that they seem really quite bad at filtering out obvious spam. I get so many messages from people I have never heard from, on relatively new domains, with endings like "if this isn't relevant for you right now, say "not now" and I'll not circle back" (a clear attempt to allow unsubscribe without using the word). How is it that they haven't figured out how to stop these mes…

Could be worse. I see the email from another person that has the exact same email direction that me, except that he doesn't have a "." . I see his private emails and I get double of spam... I use only Gmail as a "register and get a spam" email account. Any serious or important email goes to proton mail.

PD: I contacted that person and I formed about the situation some time ago.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#64

Post by computerjoe314 »

lpolovets wrote: post #28

Related to this, I hate how aggressively Google pushes Gemini and all of the privacy implications involved with that. 1) Lots of features got moved around and there are now many "Write with AI", "Generate image with AI", etc buttons polluting user interfaces even though I don't use them and don't want to use them. 2) Actually, I would use some of these features if I didn't have to do a full opt-in to Smart Features f…

Their AI push is what convinced me to leave gmail and go buy my own domain. I don't want it.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#65

Post by ryanmcbride »

apparent wrote: post #5

What surprises me most about gmail and AI is that they seem really quite bad at filtering out obvious spam. I get so many messages from people I have never heard from, on relatively new domains, with endings like "if this isn't relevant for you right now, say "not now" and I'll not circle back" (a clear attempt to allow unsubscribe without using the word). How is it that they haven't figured out how to stop these mes…

If it was profitable for them to fix it they could probably fix it immediately. They don't care because it's no longer profitable for them to provide excellent service.

They only care about providing a service that is just good enough to keep enough people from jumping ship.

And the cool thing is that damn near every company on the planet is doing the same thing right now so even if you DO jump ship you aren't guaranteed anything better, just shitty in different ways.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#66

Post by tartoran »

rjh29 wrote: post #47
lpolovets wrote: post #28

Related to this, I hate how aggressively Google pushes Gemini and all of the privacy implications involved with that. 1) Lots of features got moved around and there are now many "Write with AI", "Generate image with AI", etc buttons polluting user interfaces even though I don't use them and don't want to use them. 2) Actually, I would use some of these features if I didn't have to do a full opt-in to Smart Features f…

They've always been this way. I think until recently Google Maps would refuse to save your home address unless you enabled location history, so you had to type it in every time.

I chose typing every time.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#67

Post by xp84 »

platevoltage wrote: post #39
Forgeties79 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not wrong but so far they’re one of the only major companies in their cohort that isn’t shoving AI down our throats/integrating it into literally everything and begging us to use it with some embarrassing corporate plea. Opting out of Siri is incredibly easy and there are no major features i care about that decision locks me out of. I think it has some impacts on CarPlay but it’s never stopped me from being ab…

I hear you on this. All I hear is how behind Apple is with AI. More and more I'm feeling like thats a feature not a bug.

Let's not pretend that fact is anything but a happy accident, though. The only reason AI has been practically scrubbed from their website is to try to make us forget the time they preannounced fantastically brilliant AI capabilities and then delivered less than nothing -- not even fixing Siri, which is the obvious #1 product in the world that needs to be rebuilt on LLMs.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#68

Post by jedberg »

I probably accept about 50% of its suggestions for improvements.

Sometimes it finds "misspellings" where I wrote a correctly spelled word but not the one I intended, because it understands context. Sometimes it legitimately makes the sentence clearer.

And sometimes its suggestion turns the message from a warm and friendly email into a cold strictly-business email. Those are the ones I usually ignore.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#70

Post by dbvn »

macintux wrote: post #4

I really hope Apple watches what Google and Microsoft are doing with AI, specifically shoving it into their customers' workflow without invitation, and steers far away from that path.

Don't worry, Apple has been watching for a decade plus. And it seems they will continue just watching
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