Two odd things happened almost simultaneously last night. They arrived like a one-two punch of blinding illumination, the bad kind, where you wind up on your ass in the gutter, seeing stars.
If AI happens to propose a message similar to what I actually was thinking, I become overwhelmed with shame that I’m so predictable and immediately shift my thinking and wording. So I guess AI *is* making me more creative, out of sheer cussedness…?
There are two "smart" settings next to each other. Be sure to turn both off. I am revolted that the default is on and the consequences of "on" are not explained at all.
Thank you!! The AI generated responses are creepy, but what I find even more disturbing are the bullet points describing the contents of a series of emails, which began appearing in my Gmail the other day. Person A said this, to which person B replied this, then person A added, etc. I am no longer using Gmail as my main account but I haven't been able to completely delete it yet as some contacts still reach out to me there and I'm afraid I might miss something important. Stuff like this brings me closer to completely cutting the cord though.
Yeah, I just discovered that as I was rejoicing at making "smart features" go away. Does any tech-savvy person know of a way to turn JUST THAT back on? Meanwhile, I'll be deleting the 2,492 emails that had piled up in my "promotions" folder.
Thanks so much. I may be too dumb to get this right. I found Settings for Chrome in the upper right hand corner of the screen (is there a separate set for Gmail I couldn't find?). I didn't see a General tab, but there was AI Innovations in the column to the left, and I turned off "help me write." So far, the AI has only been offering to help and not actually composing its own emails, but the summary of my email conversations has really been creeping me out.
Yes, gmail has its own settings that is separate from Chrome. When you have your gmail open in a browser tab, look for the gear symbol towards the upper right of your screen. When you click on that, click on the text that says "See all settings". You should then be able to follow the instructions earlier in this comment thread to turn off Gmail's AI features.
Thanks! Done and done! In retribution, Gmail dumped 6500+ promotional emails into my mailbox. I turned on my audiobook and clicked away till they were gone.
My house is on a well, so when we don’t have power we only have what water is already in the pipes. The “flush when done” reflex remains strong and must be fought, but that’s what it is: a reflex.
The GMail stuff is evil, but at least we get to pay higher electricity rates to power the data centers that enable it.
The house I grew up in in Bethesda was on a well, so I'm painfully familiar. Worse still, we had a septic tank rather than city sewerage, which imposes further restrictions in bathroom activities. One positive feature of our current location (Alabama Gulf Coast), despite the hurricane probability, is that, with City water and a gas water heater, we still have hot water even when the power is out.
We’re also on septic. It’s mostly meant that we have it pumped every 3 years like clockwork, and I strongly police grease and fats from going down the drain (there’s a stump off in the woods for those).
My father never let us forget the year that *on his birthday* (in July), he had to stand out in the broiling heat supervising the person who had come to pump out the septic tank. We/they were in that house for over 30 years, and that's the only pumping I remember, though I suppose there must have been others.
I think the fact that it was his birthday was what made it memorable, in the same way that my husband will never forget the year that we returned from a trip to visit his parents only to find, *on his birthday* (in January), that our pipes had burst. That was decades ago, and, despite improvements in pipe wrapping, etc., he still never fails to leave water running in the upstairs bathroom (served by outside pipes) on nights when the low is predicted to approach freezing. (The water is actually still running now, at nearly noon, because the temp is still not above 32°.)
We own a place in the Outer Banks that has septic. You get that pumped in wintertime when there's no one there and the smell doesn't emanate as far as it does during the summer.
The people we use for pumping the tank want to do it every two years. I found on a government website once (back when those were a tad more trustworthy) that for a family of 4, 3 years was recommended. I figure it’s like the oil change on a car; go by what the car manual tells you, not the garage. It’s always been fine, I’m sure we could get away with longer but we’re in the watershed for a lot of peoples’ drinking water.
The only burst pipe we’ve had was an uninsulated pipe running under the deck to a hose spigot. A plumber fixed that up and admonished us for not letting it drain (we thought we had). It burst again the next year, and a better plumber fixed it and installed a bleed valve on the inside so we could drain it properly.
We had a pipe burst inside the kitchen wall in the old townhouse that my then wife and I were renting. After busting away some of the plaster and fixing the pipe, the plumber pointed out to me that whoever had installed it had run it through an exterior wall without insulation.
I called Miss Lawler our landlady and explained what happened. “Oh, just call Sonny and have him take care of it.” Sonny was a local handyman whose shop happened to be across the street behind his mother’s house. He gave the appearance of just being a good ol’ boy, but was actually a pretty sharp character who was making a killing renovating properties as that part of Old Town Alexandria west of Washington Street was transitioning from low rent neighbor to equal with the opening of the King Street Metro station. Sonny came in and said, “Would you look at that! Would you look at that! Some damn fool put that in there without a lick insulation. And you know something?” he said with a grin, “I’m the damn fool who did it!”
One of my daughters used Chat GPT in high school. She would debate with it, frustrating it by ending all of their "conversations" with "I am a god. You are a machine," thus rendering it speechless.
My 95-year-old neighbor asked for my help yesterday because she thought she could no longer reply to emails. When she tried, "Press / for Help me write" appeared in the response. Not realizing she could ignore this and start typing, she thought there was some help she needed to get before she could send emails. When it is done with your ass, Gmail can kiss mine also.
Having lived not far from Gene on Capitol Hill I just assumed water main break because it was a regular thing, year round thanks to ancient infrastructure.
We as a nation are not idiots. We are idiot savants.
It sounds like the making of a vintage Gene Weingarten column where you email someone else who also has a gmail account with something true, some bit of disinformation, and something simply word salad. Request they send the AI generated response back. Send the AI response to that back, etc. See where it goes.
We used to call that "gossip" if that's the one I'm thinking of where you whisper something to the next person and see what it is when it comes back to you around a room or circle. I wonder if the AI Telephone Gossip results would blend the truth and disinformation, correct anything, sane wash the whole thing or just call it out. Apparently Youtube videos have been offering replies to the makers so they can respond to comments with little effort and there's a hilarious video on those. Most of the responses seem to want the maker to admit to knowing nothing or being fantastically egotistical. Maybe they trained theirs on tRump?
Passing a message along a series of people to observe the distortion that results? We did that in elementary school with it being rushed (timed resulting in huge distortion) or not, and eventually it got shaped into a careful listening exercise. Honestly that sounds like adults taking the fun out of a game but it stayed fun, and when we got it right (no distortion) we'd get a reward, like released for playground maybe.
Our house was on the edge of town and they extended sewer services to us, but we needed to pay a plumber to hook us up. And a father and son company did the work. While they ere doing the final hook, I went to potty and kept thinking "DO NOT FLUSH!!" But I did whlie the son was working just past the edge of the house. And he said very politely "Please do not flush again." I will never forget how I felt.
I loathe Google and gmail. I have a gmail account which I only have in case something goes wrong with my real email account. Apple keeps pushing their 26.whatever update, which is their AI packed BS. I keep refusing the update. I guess this will go on; them nagging, me refusing or ignoring, for the foreseeable future.
While I am on the subject: I also loathe autocorrect and autofill, but am amused when autocorrect cannot come up with a substitution for a word that is clearly NOT a word. Or, I just made a typo in the above word, substitution. Autocorrect changed it to substation.
I forget what it was that I intended, but some friends were initially shocked when the phrase "eating the children" appeared in a "corrected" message from me.
I have had autocorrect make absolutely horrifyingly potentially embarrassing "corrections" to things like someone's name and I have a visceral shudder when I see it, just before correcting it back... so many catastrophes averted.
Easy enough to say 'get another job'. Unfortunately, too many people are at the apex of their skills, capabilities and earning potential, so that option kinda sucks, to put it mildly. They may even like the job. Similar to the flaming assholes sending the bullshit boilerplate replies when we contact our Reps and Senators. Actually, AI can take their jobs. Cool!
Nah, not the so-called legislators' jobs. We'd be able to immediately know it's not them by the speed at which we got the personalized replies or the detailed wrong answers.
I doubt anyone asked for this "feature". I read that Google collects all info on your correspondence from these settings. Big Bezos Bro is watching and collecting.
Every time I am exposed to (never requested) "AI summaries" of subjects I'm familiar-to-expert in, they are riddled with vague "Barnum statements" and outright errors. I'd as soon ask Donald the Orange for research assistance.
I am amazed at the AI summaries I see cited on FB on technical subjects that are just wrong and aren't posted by just one person, but by several. Then several of the people agree with those posts and soon everyone on the thread thinks something that is just plain wrong is the correct answer.
AI wrote this comment.
Lazy bastard. AI, I mean.
good one!
I did not download ChatGPT and have disabled the AI prompts/responses as much as I can. It's very creepy.
If AI happens to propose a message similar to what I actually was thinking, I become overwhelmed with shame that I’m so predictable and immediately shift my thinking and wording. So I guess AI *is* making me more creative, out of sheer cussedness…?
Love this! 👍
You are correct. I didn't know what the hell that was about until read this column.
Mr. Grumpypants doesn't always send you stuff like this??
Why do I suspect that Gene is not the first person you've referred to as "Mr. Grumpypants"? (Response suggested by AI)
hahahaha! Wrong, AI.
We watch our world go up in flame,
and shrug as if it’s all the same.
Our minds grow quiet, cold, and numb—
not wiser now, just overcome.
Gmail still allows you, for now, to shut off the AI slop spigot. Go into Settings, and under the General tab uncheck the box for Smart [ha!] Features.
"For now," indeed. One of these days we're going to try to shut it off and we'll hear, "I'm sorry, but I can't do that, Dave/insert your name here."
How did you know my name is Dave?! Are you AI???
There are two "smart" settings next to each other. Be sure to turn both off. I am revolted that the default is on and the consequences of "on" are not explained at all.
Thanks!
Thank you!! The AI generated responses are creepy, but what I find even more disturbing are the bullet points describing the contents of a series of emails, which began appearing in my Gmail the other day. Person A said this, to which person B replied this, then person A added, etc. I am no longer using Gmail as my main account but I haven't been able to completely delete it yet as some contacts still reach out to me there and I'm afraid I might miss something important. Stuff like this brings me closer to completely cutting the cord though.
But that turns off the filtering out of promotions and Updates from the main folder. Bastards.
Yeah, I just discovered that as I was rejoicing at making "smart features" go away. Does any tech-savvy person know of a way to turn JUST THAT back on? Meanwhile, I'll be deleting the 2,492 emails that had piled up in my "promotions" folder.
Yes, thank you! I just did it.
Thanks so much. I may be too dumb to get this right. I found Settings for Chrome in the upper right hand corner of the screen (is there a separate set for Gmail I couldn't find?). I didn't see a General tab, but there was AI Innovations in the column to the left, and I turned off "help me write." So far, the AI has only been offering to help and not actually composing its own emails, but the summary of my email conversations has really been creeping me out.
Yes, gmail has its own settings that is separate from Chrome. When you have your gmail open in a browser tab, look for the gear symbol towards the upper right of your screen. When you click on that, click on the text that says "See all settings". You should then be able to follow the instructions earlier in this comment thread to turn off Gmail's AI features.
Thanks! Done and done! In retribution, Gmail dumped 6500+ promotional emails into my mailbox. I turned on my audiobook and clicked away till they were gone.
Glad to help!
My house is on a well, so when we don’t have power we only have what water is already in the pipes. The “flush when done” reflex remains strong and must be fought, but that’s what it is: a reflex.
The GMail stuff is evil, but at least we get to pay higher electricity rates to power the data centers that enable it.
The house I grew up in in Bethesda was on a well, so I'm painfully familiar. Worse still, we had a septic tank rather than city sewerage, which imposes further restrictions in bathroom activities. One positive feature of our current location (Alabama Gulf Coast), despite the hurricane probability, is that, with City water and a gas water heater, we still have hot water even when the power is out.
We’re also on septic. It’s mostly meant that we have it pumped every 3 years like clockwork, and I strongly police grease and fats from going down the drain (there’s a stump off in the woods for those).
My father never let us forget the year that *on his birthday* (in July), he had to stand out in the broiling heat supervising the person who had come to pump out the septic tank. We/they were in that house for over 30 years, and that's the only pumping I remember, though I suppose there must have been others.
I think the fact that it was his birthday was what made it memorable, in the same way that my husband will never forget the year that we returned from a trip to visit his parents only to find, *on his birthday* (in January), that our pipes had burst. That was decades ago, and, despite improvements in pipe wrapping, etc., he still never fails to leave water running in the upstairs bathroom (served by outside pipes) on nights when the low is predicted to approach freezing. (The water is actually still running now, at nearly noon, because the temp is still not above 32°.)
We own a place in the Outer Banks that has septic. You get that pumped in wintertime when there's no one there and the smell doesn't emanate as far as it does during the summer.
The people we use for pumping the tank want to do it every two years. I found on a government website once (back when those were a tad more trustworthy) that for a family of 4, 3 years was recommended. I figure it’s like the oil change on a car; go by what the car manual tells you, not the garage. It’s always been fine, I’m sure we could get away with longer but we’re in the watershed for a lot of peoples’ drinking water.
The only burst pipe we’ve had was an uninsulated pipe running under the deck to a hose spigot. A plumber fixed that up and admonished us for not letting it drain (we thought we had). It burst again the next year, and a better plumber fixed it and installed a bleed valve on the inside so we could drain it properly.
We had a pipe burst inside the kitchen wall in the old townhouse that my then wife and I were renting. After busting away some of the plaster and fixing the pipe, the plumber pointed out to me that whoever had installed it had run it through an exterior wall without insulation.
I called Miss Lawler our landlady and explained what happened. “Oh, just call Sonny and have him take care of it.” Sonny was a local handyman whose shop happened to be across the street behind his mother’s house. He gave the appearance of just being a good ol’ boy, but was actually a pretty sharp character who was making a killing renovating properties as that part of Old Town Alexandria west of Washington Street was transitioning from low rent neighbor to equal with the opening of the King Street Metro station. Sonny came in and said, “Would you look at that! Would you look at that! Some damn fool put that in there without a lick insulation. And you know something?” he said with a grin, “I’m the damn fool who did it!”
Sonny gets points for honesty. Did he get paid for both running the pipe through the wall and for doing the repair?
When we had that memorable pumping, we were a household of six. Toward the end, my parents were empty-nesters.
One of my daughters used Chat GPT in high school. She would debate with it, frustrating it by ending all of their "conversations" with "I am a god. You are a machine," thus rendering it speechless.
My 95-year-old neighbor asked for my help yesterday because she thought she could no longer reply to emails. When she tried, "Press / for Help me write" appeared in the response. Not realizing she could ignore this and start typing, she thought there was some help she needed to get before she could send emails. When it is done with your ass, Gmail can kiss mine also.
Poor Granpa. You couldn’t have melted the ice on the stove?
We did. But we wanted this picture first.
Having lived not far from Gene on Capitol Hill I just assumed water main break because it was a regular thing, year round thanks to ancient infrastructure.
Indeed. When Gene is younger than his water main, you have the potential for regular breaks.
Isn’t the power out too? That’s what I’m picturing.
nope. water main break.
We as a nation are not idiots. We are idiot savants.
It sounds like the making of a vintage Gene Weingarten column where you email someone else who also has a gmail account with something true, some bit of disinformation, and something simply word salad. Request they send the AI generated response back. Send the AI response to that back, etc. See where it goes.
"Telephone" for the 21st Century.
We used to call that "gossip" if that's the one I'm thinking of where you whisper something to the next person and see what it is when it comes back to you around a room or circle. I wonder if the AI Telephone Gossip results would blend the truth and disinformation, correct anything, sane wash the whole thing or just call it out. Apparently Youtube videos have been offering replies to the makers so they can respond to comments with little effort and there's a hilarious video on those. Most of the responses seem to want the maker to admit to knowing nothing or being fantastically egotistical. Maybe they trained theirs on tRump?
Reminds me of the old game: Whisper Down the Alley. Didn't we already do that?
Passing a message along a series of people to observe the distortion that results? We did that in elementary school with it being rushed (timed resulting in huge distortion) or not, and eventually it got shaped into a careful listening exercise. Honestly that sounds like adults taking the fun out of a game but it stayed fun, and when we got it right (no distortion) we'd get a reward, like released for playground maybe.
Our house was on the edge of town and they extended sewer services to us, but we needed to pay a plumber to hook us up. And a father and son company did the work. While they ere doing the final hook, I went to potty and kept thinking "DO NOT FLUSH!!" But I did whlie the son was working just past the edge of the house. And he said very politely "Please do not flush again." I will never forget how I felt.
I would say that was a shitty thing to do, but I'm told that I don't know shit.
I expected anger. I suspected I was not the first to do that.
Somehow this reminds me of the famous exchange between Sherlock Holmes and the evil Professor Moriarty:
“‘All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,’ said he.
“‘Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,’ I replied.
I loathe Google and gmail. I have a gmail account which I only have in case something goes wrong with my real email account. Apple keeps pushing their 26.whatever update, which is their AI packed BS. I keep refusing the update. I guess this will go on; them nagging, me refusing or ignoring, for the foreseeable future.
While I am on the subject: I also loathe autocorrect and autofill, but am amused when autocorrect cannot come up with a substitution for a word that is clearly NOT a word. Or, I just made a typo in the above word, substitution. Autocorrect changed it to substation.
Knowing Apple, they'll eventually make that "update" mandatory.
I forget what it was that I intended, but some friends were initially shocked when the phrase "eating the children" appeared in a "corrected" message from me.
hahahaha
I have had autocorrect make absolutely horrifyingly potentially embarrassing "corrections" to things like someone's name and I have a visceral shudder when I see it, just before correcting it back... so many catastrophes averted.
I am in an apostrophe war with autocorrect. Dumb machine.
And the hyphen war. It wants to hyphenate every prefix whether it's a true word or not, esp "non." I should have said, pre-fix.
Yes that too,
I think there are people whose entire job consists of reading and answering emails, and they're tired of actually reading and answering those emails.
Easy enough to say 'get another job'. Unfortunately, too many people are at the apex of their skills, capabilities and earning potential, so that option kinda sucks, to put it mildly. They may even like the job. Similar to the flaming assholes sending the bullshit boilerplate replies when we contact our Reps and Senators. Actually, AI can take their jobs. Cool!
The staff jobs, or the MCs' and Senators' jobs?
Nah, not the so-called legislators' jobs. We'd be able to immediately know it's not them by the speed at which we got the personalized replies or the detailed wrong answers.
Hate it when someone asks a hard question....
I doubt anyone asked for this "feature". I read that Google collects all info on your correspondence from these settings. Big Bezos Bro is watching and collecting.
I use AI for research. That’s it. For those of us who enjoy writing, why use AI for that? Perish the thought!
Every time I am exposed to (never requested) "AI summaries" of subjects I'm familiar-to-expert in, they are riddled with vague "Barnum statements" and outright errors. I'd as soon ask Donald the Orange for research assistance.
One has to be selective.
I am amazed at the AI summaries I see cited on FB on technical subjects that are just wrong and aren't posted by just one person, but by several. Then several of the people agree with those posts and soon everyone on the thread thinks something that is just plain wrong is the correct answer.