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I Fired Google

theartofdoingstuff.com

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Re: I Fired Google

#91

Post by aNapierkowski »

delichon wrote: post #29
aliasxneo wrote: post #5

I don't really use our Google Home devices, but my wife does. Ever since the "update" I've noticed now that Gemini likes to ask her 2-3 follow up questions after each query. The first might be something like, "Would you like to know more about ?" My wife would answer "No" and Gemini would respond like, "Is there anything else you would like to discuss on the subject of ?" It's gotten to the point where she will start…

I talk to chatbots while doing yardwork, often with both hands full. Yesterday I tried to get it to shut up mid conversation and just could not do it with voice only. I had to wait through several minutes of blathering, restarted by every random noise, before I could put the chainsaw down and turn it off. I was amazed at my own level of anger at that. It was just a voice in my ears but I reacted to it viscerally like…

i know it "has" to respond the way its set up but it feels like a robot trying to get the last word when youre just trying to stop it

Re: I Fired Google

#93

Post by ihaveone »

FYI; you can give Gemini default preferences which helps some of this. I use the caveman instructions and it applies anywhere I'm logged in, like Android auto. This fixed so many issues.

Re: I Fired Google

#94

Post by Henchman21 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #66

> Nobody asked for New Coke. I know nobody did, but seeing as I was too young (and maybe not even alive?) I have always wanted to try it. I'm a Coca Cola enthusiast after all. I wish they'd release a "Throwback Experimental Coke" batch out. I assume it was their attempt to flavor coke without the coca leaves?

It was a ploy to use a cheaper form of sugar — HFCS — instead of sugar.

Re: I Fired Google

#95

Post by netsharc »

fastforwardius wrote: post #77

Good to stop repeating actions making you unhappy, but how about going without assistants alltogether? From the examples given I haven't seen any meaningful life improvement with them.

"Remind me [at datetime/in x hours] about Y." is very useful for handsfree reminders. I have an alarm clock that reacts to "Hey Google" so I just say "alarm at xyz" to set alarms. With the phone, "Navigate home" saves a few seconds compared to opening Google Maps and hitting the "Home" shortcut.

I'm just waiting for Google to send the email with the title like "An update about Assistant's future" to make the clock e-waste. On the phone I tried Gemini but that's slower because it needs a brain for simple text parsing..

Re: I Fired Google

#96

Post by ack210 »

elbasti wrote: post #11

I have an android phone which means I use android auto fairly often. The sheer quality destruction it's experienced since transitioning to Gemini is incredible. I experience this mostly when asking for music. Before gemini, mistakes were common but deterministic. It was easy to understand where the query had gone wrong and so how to fix it. Example: "Hey google, play Blackstar " (Plays the album blackstar by David Bo…

Since android auto transitioned to Gemini, whenever I try to reply to a message by tapping the reply button, it now states "Sorry, but to do that, you'll need permission from your Google Workspace administrator." The stupid part is, if I listen to the message first, then say yes when it asks me if I'd like to reply, I'm then allowed to reply. There's countless articles and posts about this but no one seems to have found a reliable solution yet. Has been going on since at least December.

It also now seems to trigger its own barge-in about 50% of the time. It'll start reading the first syllable of a message, apparently confuse itself talking for me saying something, then just follow that with silence "listening" for my response until I physically have to hit the back button on the car.

Re: I Fired Google

#98

Post by 9dev »

Hugsbox wrote: post #80
9dev wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you even browse the web without using an ad blocker?

The "ad" as described in my comment isn't really an ad in the typical sense, it's baked into the website. But the real reason is, I'm on my work computer and unable to install browser extensions.

You should urgently contact your IT department. Not enforcing ad blocking extensions is a security liability.

Re: I Fired Google

#99

Post by leosanchez »

radiorental wrote: post #85
xnx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No good options on Android right now. You can use Firefox, but there are a lot of tradeoffs.

I'm curious what the tradeoffs are, I exclusively use FF and any time Chrome auto opens via a link I immediately baulk at the experience.

I use FF exclusively and disabled chrome on my Android phone.

Lucky me :)

Re: I Fired Google

#100

Post by RajT88 »

bsimpson wrote: post #62
elbasti wrote: post #11

I have an android phone which means I use android auto fairly often. The sheer quality destruction it's experienced since transitioning to Gemini is incredible. I experience this mostly when asking for music. Before gemini, mistakes were common but deterministic. It was easy to understand where the query had gone wrong and so how to fix it. Example: "Hey google, play Blackstar " (Plays the album blackstar by David Bo…

There was an Amazon UXR study that floated around ~8 years ago that said the only things people care about from a voice assistant are music, weather, and alarms. PMs keep trying to make them "smarter," and it just makes the core user journeys worse. Surely they think they're inventing cars when we're griping about buggy whips. But it really feels like voice assistants peaked ~10y ago for the things people actually wa…

For a bit, our Amazon Echo's were pretty decent at doing things other than music, weather and alarms. Then there was a big regression, and we stopped trying to make it do more. I guess the exception is turning the lights on and off.

My wife and I both would love for the voice assistants to do more. They just won't. Even with weather, anything more than "what's the weather like today" will usually not get a good result. "When will it rain today?" gets OK responses.

As soon as I figure out how to put a decent GPU into my old rack server(s), I'll see how far I can get with HomeAssistant. I suspect it'll be some effort, but it'll be better at the end of the day.

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