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Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

discuss.ai.google.dev

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Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#641

Post by koalaman »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #222

Edit: I have misread some of the comments here, he didn't lose access to his whole account and data just the antigravity part. I should've done my due diligence, get out of bed and spent more time thinking instead of emotionally reacting. Guess the rage machine got me as well. Damn. I think this thread might be hijacked by ai bros. The main point still stands, google is part of a duopoly that runs the world. You can'…

"You can't be a functional member of society without them."

could you elaborate on why this is true? I can't think of any.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#642

Post by infecto »

ndriscoll wrote: post #638
infecto wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder where I am when people are so shocked. I genuinely don’t understand who would think this is allowable? Is this simply a younger generation and I am old now? API keys vs the auth tokens smells the same as public vs private APIs, don’t be surprised you get shut off if you are using a private API.

To the extent that that's true, it would be in the opposite direction? Auth tokens are meant to be used by the User Agent to effect the wishes of user, often encode permissions the user has, and are used with public APIs like those intended for web browsers. API keys are usually for private communication like server to server. The usual expectation is you don't care what agent the user is running. You just care about…

Honestly that’s a detail far removed from the discussion. Folks are surprised they cannot use something that would obviously be against the T&Cs.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#643

Post by lucianbr »

Aurornis wrote: post #623
lucianbr wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how AI is supposed to be used, no? That's what the providers advertise - it increases development speed, a lot, it replaces devs and so on. But I guess it's only ok when you work on regular joe facing projects, where the consequences of bugs are on powerless users. If the consequences are on Google, well, that's not acceptable now is it?

> That's how AI is supposed to be used, no? That's what the providers advertise - it increases development speed, a lot, it replaces devs and so on. Not really. There’s a difference between accelerating development in the hands of an experienced developer versus having somebody just slop code by hoping for the best. Adopting AI doesn’t equal removing code review. These were two separate choices combined.

> https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity

Search for "review": 0 matches.

Of course the fine print says to review, just like the ultimate control of the "full self driving" rests with the human driver. But why is the fine print fine, and not large as the large print? Maybe because you're not supposed to pay attention to it? Could this be?

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#644

Post by mschuster91 »

saalweachter wrote: post #624

So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining . Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. Then someone shares the exploit with a bunch of script kiddies, they exploit it to the Nth degree, and the company immediately notices and shuts everyone down. Like, my dudes, what did you think was going to happen? You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiou…

> You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiously, and only share them sparingly. They can last for years if you carefully fly under the radar, before they're fixed by accident when another system is changed. THEN you share tales of your exploits for fame and internet points.

It's the same with vulnerabilities in slot machines. Damn rare but they exist - in 2014, when I worked in that industry, one gang made a big bang: in a single night, casinos across Germany had to say goodbye to probably 10 million € [1]. Of course, that vulnerability made massive waves... but from what I heard back then, it had been circulating for many months beforehand. Of course, 10 million € is nothing to sneeze at, but keeping a low profile could have made everyone in the know far more profit.

[1] https://www.t-online.de/digital/aktuelles/id_68982394/softwa...

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#645

Post by ndriscoll »

infecto wrote: post #642
ndriscoll wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent that that's true, it would be in the opposite direction? Auth tokens are meant to be used by the User Agent to effect the wishes of user, often encode permissions the user has, and are used with public APIs like those intended for web browsers. API keys are usually for private communication like server to server. The usual expectation is you don't care what agent the user is running. You just care about…

Honestly that’s a detail far removed from the discussion. Folks are surprised they cannot use something that would obviously be against the T&Cs.

Everyone knows no one reads terms and that it isn't feasible for a normal person to do so, so I don't know why it would "obviously" be against them to anyone. If you're paying for a subscription with known limits, you'd expect you can use up to those limits. It's no more obvious to me than if you used the API token and got banned for using another client, or if a website decided to ban Firefox users.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#646

Post by paxys »

danny_codes wrote: post #420
paxys wrote: post #68

I don't know why people here can't accept the simple fact that AI companies are offering cheap "unlimited" plans as a loss leader to tie you to their ecosystem, and then make up for it via add-ons, upsells, ads etc. If you use those API tokens to access external services it defeats the purpose. The hack may have worked so far, mainly because no one was checking, but they are all going to tighten the access eventually…

Seems like a hassle when open source models are just as good. Can go with any hosting provider. Might have to wait 3-4 weeks for them to duplicate whatever Anthropic is doing with token caching. But then you get 10x cheaper inference. I feel like this game is just a hot potato, can you get retail to hold the bag game

Open models are very far in performance from the top models of Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. And that's skipping over the fact you need somewhere to host them.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#647

Post by saalweachter »

miroljub wrote: post #628
saalweachter wrote: post #624

So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining . Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. Then someone shares the exploit with a bunch of script kiddies, they exploit it to the Nth degree, and the company immediately notices and shuts everyone down. Like, my dudes, what did you think was going to happen? You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiou…

> So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining. > Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. From a pure hacker perspective, I'm surprised there are people calling a legitimate usage a "weakness you could exploit"? What weakness? What exploit? People have been using it in a way that was technically possible. And they paid for it, many purchased the produ…

I mean, the "exploit" is really "we have an access key with overly-broad permissions and poor monitoring", but that's ... also kind of like 70% of old hacker stories?

"The gate code is 1234" "If you punch in this code it tricks the phone network into thinking you're an operator" "The credentials 'guest'/'guest' work on this network".

You probably could have had five, ten people using the Antigravity API key for whatever and even if someone noticed it probably wouldn't have been worth the time to fix.

But it's like you learn the gate code for the employee parking lot and instead of just quietly enjoying free parking you start punching in the code and waving more and more cars into the lot until it's jammed full, and then complain when the code's changed and they post a guard outside checking IDs.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#648

Post by layer8 »

lelanthran wrote: post #595
layer8 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More limited features, like lack of model selection, more restricted use of “thinking” models.

>>> a significant % of users are profitable to serve, especially the "chat" users who don't use dev tools and have short context window conversations. > More limited features, like lack of model selection, more restricted use of “thinking” models. Yeah, but... do the "chat" users actually care about any of that? Would they even notice a difference? My point is that, if all you're doing is chat, there's no value in an…

I’m a “chat” user and notice the difference.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#649

Post by lucianbr »

pja wrote: post #637
ForHackernews wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You’re responsible for the things your AI agent does.

If Google and OpenAI and the rest would say this as loud as they praise their models, I would never write comments like that. But this is the fine print, buried somewhere. And so we need to bring it up, because, lo and behold, it matters.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#650

Post by rurp »

Yizahi wrote: post #618
vincston wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What google search alternative have you found? Im trying out ecosia, duckduckgo and brave search, but i find their search results even worse, so in the second query i tend to bang to google..

DDG is good enough that I've switched many year ago and never went back. Any time I use Google (!g) to repeat query (recently it's maybe a few times per year) it fails to show anything useful too, so I don't see any benefit to even check it lately.

Similar experience for me. I've been using DDG for years and while the quality has gone downhill somewhat I still rarely use !g because Google almost never has a useful result either if DDG strikes out.
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