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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

#31

Post by _bxg1 »

smnrchrds wrote: post #16

I don't think a native English speaker would benefit much from this feature. But as someone for whom English is a second language, I am sure that I would have appreciated this when I was less fluent in English. I am now trying to learn French, and I find myself searching to the most trivial sentences in linguee.fr. Learning grammar and vocabulary is one thing; knowing the idiomatic way to express one's message is an…

Interesting perspective, but a) I think it mainly draws its word choice from your own past messages anyway, and b) wouldn't an integrated translate button be more useful to this purpose?

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#32

Post by komali2 »

komali2 wrote: post #20

What's the point of humans

From "Echopraxia"

>"You think this matters"... [Valerie the transhuman]

>"You think so, too," Moore [baseline human] began. "Or-"

>"-you wouldn't have reacted," he and Valerie finished in sync.

>He tried again: "Were they under formal con...," they chorused. He trailed off, an acknowledgement of futility. The [transhuman] even matched his ellipsis without missing a beat.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#33

Post by dmazin »

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

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#34

Post by jakear »

nascar_is_bad wrote: post #5
aantix wrote: post #2

I feel like I could type these robotic responses as fast if not faster than it takes Google to "help" me.

it's not for you. it's for grandma

In my experience anything keyboard related is not a good solution for “grandma”. What I’ve seen work best is voice to text. My dad composes all of his messages with voice, as the alternative is first finding his reading glasses, then pecking out keys with only his index fingers at a rate of about half a key a second.

Sure he could abbreviate and autocomplete his way through a sentence... but then I’m not talking to my dad anymore; instead I’m talking to some k’th mean of human interaction.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#35

Post by insensible »

smnrchrds wrote: post #16

I don't think a native English speaker would benefit much from this feature. But as someone for whom English is a second language, I am sure that I would have appreciated this when I was less fluent in English. I am now trying to learn French, and I find myself searching to the most trivial sentences in linguee.fr. Learning grammar and vocabulary is one thing; knowing the idiomatic way to express one's message is an…

Yes. On a smaller scale, iOS predictive text is helping me learn a new language. Unexpected suggestions become new things to learn about.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#36

Post by dmazin »

baxtr wrote: post #23

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?

Yes. But let's extend that evolution -- if an AI can pretty much write a solid email, don't we basically become like a safety driver in a self-driving car? Not alluring.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#38

Post by peatmoss »

scrollaway wrote: post #21

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 Fast…

I'm a paying Fastmail user. I switched over after they (EDIT: Gmail) started announcing compatibility-breaking features. Processing my emails to suggest content is one of a litany of reasons that I'm glad to have switched my email to Fastmail.

In this particular case, I think people are (probably rightly) concerned about how the machine learning models here are used to suggest content. I would guess that most of the people who are unconcerned with the Android keyboard's privacy model either haven't thought too much about it, or have come to accept it in small increments.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#39

Post by Digit-Al »

Those of you complaining about this have obviously never had to deal with the unintelligible gibberish that can sometimes be spewed out by desperate customer support staff on tight deadlines. If this can even begin to help them write sentences that are readable and understandable then I'm all for it.

Re: Write Emails Faster with Smart Compose in Gmail

#40

Post by kazinator »

smnrchrds wrote: post #16

I don't think a native English speaker would benefit much from this feature. But as someone for whom English is a second language, I am sure that I would have appreciated this when I was less fluent in English. I am now trying to learn French, and I find myself searching to the most trivial sentences in linguee.fr. Learning grammar and vocabulary is one thing; knowing the idiomatic way to express one's message is an…

Here is something funny. Google's Japanese Input on Android does English dictionary lookup when you're in romaji mode. And, here is the kicker: you have to use exact spelling, or no dice.
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