Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail • Hacker News Board

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#21

Post by scrollaway » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

So why exactly are people suddenly up in arms about this?

How's it different from opening up your android phone and using google's spellcheck, with algorithms that predict your next word when you're typing?

Never seen such atrociously negative comments to what's essentially a cool feature you can disable.

PS: How many of the outraged people here are actually voting with their wallet and paying for something like Fastmail? (https://www.fastmail.com)

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#22

Post by skybrian » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #9

Good lord that's scary. Rapidly ushering in the future where none of our words are our own. Anyone ever read Roald Dahl's short story The Great Automatic Grammatizator ? 10/10 strongly recommend, about an engineer who develops a computer-like machine able to compose fiction. Googling "the great automatic grammatizator pdf" gives a .doc version as the top result, for me anyway.

Oh no, more autocomplete!

I don't see it as much scarier than tab-completion while programming or on a phone. As long as you're watching over it and fixing mistakes, it's just a convenience.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#23

Post by baxtr » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

I don’t understand the sentiment of the comments here (I’m no google fan!). Isn’t that just the natural evolution of word prediction like on a smartphone?

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#24

Post by _bxg1 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

Smart reply/compose might be the most dystopian thing I've seen come out of Google, which is saying something. Beyond the obvious reduction in conversational authenticity, it threatens to homogenize our voices themselves.

I would imagine that after you've been saying "close enough" for a while, the smart replies start to warp the way you phrase things mentally, instead of the other way around.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#25

Post by parliament32 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

Why do I want this?

At this point we might as well do away with the pre-structured responses and just send single a single emoji as a response. It'd get the same message across.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#26

Post by chatmasta » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

I wonder where the training data comes from? Is it from my account only, my organization account, or...?

If I type “Sure, the password is” will it auto suggest some passwords from other people’s previously sent emails?

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#27

Post by 40acres » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

What's the difference between this and auto complete? I think there is a bit of overreacting here.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#28

Post by rahilb » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#29

Post by calloc2 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #20

What's the point of humans

Humans may click on ads, though I hear that is automated, too.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#30

Post by ilaksh » Tue, May 08, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

Lol. This is exactly like the plot of the book Avogadro Corp. where a Google-like company creates an email-composing system which then leads directly to the singularity as the program pursues it's own agenda.