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Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

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Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#121

Post by prlambert »

jedberg wrote: post #113
prlambert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're training Smart Compose from highly anonymized global corpus of consumer email. We've stopped using emails for Ad targeting entirely, and the enforcement is quite strict, as reported in June: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html

You don't have an email in your profile, so I'm just gonna hijack this comment. :) I can't enable smart compose. My general tab doesn't have "Enable experiments" at the bottom. Is this getting rolled out in phases? I logged out and logged back in just in case, but no dice. My email is in my profile if you need it. Thanks!

Rolling out over the course of the day. We'll be at 100% in a couple hours. Thanks for your patience. :)

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#122

Post by aserafini »

rahilb wrote: post #28
scott_s wrote: post #3

I go out of my way to avoid banal phrases in my emails.

Banal pleasantries cost nothing (less than nothing with this new feature), and at worst are ignored and at best make the receiver feel better about you and the important text that follows.

They can have a cost if they dilute the core intent or message of the email: the reader has a higher cognitive overhead before understanding how to reply or what action to take. I spend a lot effort stripping out fluff and filler fron my mails, as a courtesy to the recipient!

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#123

Post by cs02rm0 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #120
ams6110 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the trend will lead to illiteracy. Why learn to read and write when your computer can just speak to you and transcribe everything you say to it? I recently saw a signature board for honor students posted at a high school. The signatures from the early 1990s were all in cursive and every signature had its own style. The signatures from 2017 were mostly printed in block letters and looked like something a first…

I don't think lack of handwriting skill has anything to do with writing ability, which is generally understood to be the ability to express ideas in text. Of course keyboard skills have supplanted handwriting. Perhaps dictation will replace keyboard skills soon. The method of written creation is irrelevant to the output.

I tend to agree. It wasn't that long ago that kids writing in cursive couldn't wield a quill and blotting paper effectively. Or a wax tablet before that.

At least, until some Doomsday scenario arrives.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#125

Post by peatmoss »

prlambert wrote: post #101
peatmoss wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add a third, I have a problem with my personal emails being used as a corpus of text to train these models. Maybe they're using only my emails to train a model for me, and turning that feature off disables them doing so. Maybe they're using everyone's email to train a generic model. Of course, they've been (machine) reading your emails to provide ads since forever, so in that sense maybe this isn't really that new…

We're training Smart Compose from highly anonymized global corpus of consumer email. We've stopped using emails for Ad targeting entirely, and the enforcement is quite strict, as reported in June: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html

> highly anonymized global corpus of consumer email.

I read this as confirmation that, if I were a Gmail customer, that you would indeed be using my personal emails to train your models.

For me, I then have to wonder what "highly anonymized" means in this context. Does this means that users' emails are put through yet another processing pipeline to separate emails into anonymous / not-anonymous buckets or to redact personally identifying information?

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#126

Post by et-al »

venantius wrote: post #117

Okay, I guess I've got the contrarian take this time around. As a CEO/founder, I spend an astonishing amount of time writing emails that are mostly the same. Things like the following: Dear [name], [pleasantry]. I'm writing to check in on [$$non-automatable follow-up action$$]. [Have you been able to take care of this yet? Let me know if I can be of assistance.] [best regards / thanks] [signature] ... For me, things…

Seems like you want a mail merge feature, which does exist for emails.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#127

Post by peatmoss »

scrollaway wrote: post #79
peatmoss wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you are a (paid?) enterprise user, they do not do this. On the other hand, sussing out what is and is not fair game is quite a lot easier with a service such as Fastmail.

Doesn't have to be "enterprise". Anyone can pay $5/mo for GSuite ( https://gsuite.google.com ), which includes gmail and a ton of other tools. Furthermore, it's on your own domain rather than @gmail.com, which is not only better (you truly own the email address), it's also a hell of a lot more professional and makes it easier to migrate to other services if you wish to. To put it bluntly, if anyone here is complainin…

That's a generous offer, and one that I'd echo. If anyone is unsure where to start, or wants some advice, I'll be glad to help you with domain registration and email hosting MX record setup.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#128

Post by jedberg »

prlambert wrote: post #121
jedberg wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have an email in your profile, so I'm just gonna hijack this comment. :) I can't enable smart compose. My general tab doesn't have "Enable experiments" at the bottom. Is this getting rolled out in phases? I logged out and logged back in just in case, but no dice. My email is in my profile if you need it. Thanks!

Rolling out over the course of the day. We'll be at 100% in a couple hours. Thanks for your patience. :)

Sweet, thanks! I'll just keep hitting reload till I see it. ;)

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#129

Post by mercer »

ams6110 wrote: post #98
dmazin wrote: post #33

This is basically autocorrect on the level of phrases. If that's true, this will have an enormously homogenizing effect on the way we speak (spell check alone has caused an actual shrinkage of the English lexicon [1]). I wrote extensively about this for Mondo 2000: ( http://www.mondo2000.com/2018/01/17/pink-lexical-goop-dark-s... ) [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00313#references

I think the trend will lead to illiteracy. Why learn to read and write when your computer can just speak to you and transcribe everything you say to it? I recently saw a signature board for honor students posted at a high school. The signatures from the early 1990s were all in cursive and every signature had its own style. The signatures from 2017 were mostly printed in block letters and looked like something a first…

Why sad? Would you prefer we all learn how to use a feather and ink? or perhaps chiseling stuff into rocks?

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#130

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

duderific wrote: post #116
microtonal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Mail would suggest: Holy crap, everybody burn your dictionaries. ;)

Unless they meant "Holy crap, everybody burn: you're dictionaries!"

Reads like a Fahrenheit 451 / 1984 mashup. The perfect dystopia.
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