Google Update Reveals AI Will Read All Your Private Messages

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/01/28/new-details-free-ai-upgrade-for-google-and-samsung-android-users-leaks/

by furkansahin • 2 years ago

89 49 2 years ago

forbes.com

raziel2p• 2 years ago

This only affects the Messages app, right? I only use this for SMS, which means never at all. Still not a great precedent, though.

agilob• 2 years ago

Still not a great precedent, though.

Doesn't desktop Outlook client allow MS to train their AI on your emails? Even if you use GMail in Outlook MS has access to it?

boxed2• 2 years ago

Outlook.com sends links in emails to bing. Meaning your password reset mail links can be indexed. So the AI training seems like the least of their problems...

nolist_policy2• 2 years ago

With the new Outlook client, all your emails and email account credentials go trough Microsoft's servers, even if you use a 3rd party email provider.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38208797

bsenftner• 2 years ago

Today, as a testing of waters against public opinion. If there is no tidal wave of outrage, expect it everywhere.

noworld• 2 years ago

"Google, give me a list of usernames of [x political persuasion]."

zeroCalories• 2 years ago

Any recommendations for privacy respecting smartphones?

tmikaeld• 2 years ago

iPhone?

thalassophobia• 2 years ago

Pixel with GrapheneOS installed

largbae• 2 years ago

I use GrapheneOS, even that can't protect you from Google unless you are willing to live 15 years in the past.

Any app beyond the absolute basics uses the (yes, sandboxed) Google Play store. But almost every Google play store app then uses Google Play Services to read your location etc., so you have to give that data to Google's software first if you want any app to work.

To get around it every app (or at least the ones like Lyft/Uber and airline apps that you need to move around) will need to be rewritten to avoid Google Play Services.

thisisauserid2• 2 years ago

From the app:

"The Google Messages app creates suggestions with technology that’s built into your device. This way, your conversations stay in the Google Messages app. They aren’t sent to the Google Assistant or Google servers."

gaius_baltar• 2 years ago

The article contradicts this point:

"There will be another, less contentious privacy issue with your Messages requests to Bard. These will be sent to the cloud for processing, used for training and maybe seen by humans—albeit anonymized. This data will be stored for 18-months, and will persist for a few days even if you disable the AI, albeit manual deletion is available."

This person shard a report on this issue for Ireland's Data Protection Commission: https://eupolicy.social/@thatprivacyguy/111839553765828301

thisisauserid2• 2 years ago

It's Forbes.

And the person that shared "a report" only shared this same Forbes article.

jsnell• 2 years ago

What you seem to be missing is that the article did not have any actual source for its claims, it's just reporting an answer from an AI. What the article says is irrelevant, because all of it has been made up.

Your new link is even worse. It just quotes from this article, but conveniently omits the part about the original source being a chatbot.

It's quite amazing how gullible some people are. I can kind of understand HN commenters reading the headline, believing it, and commenting without reading the article. But this is somebody whose self-identity is so tied to online privacy issues that their handle is "thatprivacyguy", and they're literally filing official complaints with no fact checking despite obvious red flags, and wasting precious DPC resources on AI-generated slop.

candiddevmike• 2 years ago

How do I turn it off?

jqpabc1232• 2 years ago

Don't use Google.

Privacy invasion is baked into everything they do and only increases over time. The objective being to use your privacy to enrich themselves and bilk advertisers at your expense.

Lariscus• 2 years ago

Remove the google messages app and use a different messager instead.

mechhacker• 2 years ago

Really needs to be a bill of rights issue to not have every human communication read by an outside entity, including robots, "private" or not.

Both 3rd and 4th amendment apply.

"No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner o be prescribed by law." The soldier being Google and the house being my phone.

throwanem• 2 years ago

Strict constructionism, with robots. That's a new one.

fithisux• 2 years ago

you nailed it

FetusP• 2 years ago

The Search Engine Wars are coming.

nolist_policy2• 2 years ago

What a weird article, it doesn't clarify anything.

It tries to lead you into thinking that every RCS message is read by Bard on Google servers in clear-text, without e2e encryption. When it is only chats with the Bard chatbot that are readable by Google, for obvious reasons.

Then the article talks more about Apple than Google.

Also the author seems to be querying Bard for original information without double-checking.

This is the reason why Google is so hesitant, anything they do will be used against them.

Sorry for this bad comment, but this seems to be a Gish gallop situation so I want to get over it as quickly as possible.

FergusArgyll2• 2 years ago

The source for this claim is, Bard?

FergusArgyll2• 2 years ago

This is why Forbes articles by contributors are not considered reliable sources on wikipedia[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...

helsinkiandrew• 2 years ago

First time I read that I assumed they meant they asked the Bard organisation in Google, but no it seems they expect Bard to be up to date with Googles policies.

WhackyIdeas5• 2 years ago

“If it can happen, it will happen.”

That saying predicts the future better than a time machine would.

beastman82• 2 years ago

In other words, the _offline_ / device-based AI will help you write texts and save you time.

api• 2 years ago

Of course it will, and all your e-mails and all your personal and company documents. You should think of anything going through Google as "I am giving this to Google to profile me and extract ad targeting information."

I bet they crawl the Google Cloud block and object storage volumes and extract information too, which means that all SaaS hosted at Google is probably mined by Google. That would be my expectation unless the contract contains very specific non-weasel-worded language prohibiting this. Any company that does ads or ad-tech as a significant part of their revenue is guilty of maximal privacy invasion unless proven innocent.

otteromkram• 2 years ago

1. Forbes is a terrible news source. 2. If you're a Gmail user, Google also reads your emails, do this isn't new ground being covered.

WhackyIdeas5• 2 years ago

Google really are the absolute monsters in this world.

Great, so now we won’t even be able to have a choice around having our private messages off their AI surveillance machine for the Five Eyes… because just the mere sending a message to someone who has an Android could be doing this.

Buckle up folks, one day the Trump Junta or their descendants will be using Google’s SurveilAI tech to come for all you true Trump haters (incl me!)

Gow8876• 2 years ago

Bush and Obama already did that surveillance thing. I am still waiting for so called Nazi Trump. But instead getting Nazi Joe and Zelenskyy. You hated the wrong person.

WhackyIdeas5• 2 years ago

Nah, I hated Trump since he bullied poor house owners who refused to sell their house next to his new golf course in Meanie, Scotland. This was long before he became president… He had his contractors build a big wall of dirt around their home because he could. All they could see when they looked out their windows was dirt. They didn’t want money. Only wanted to see the rest of their days in their own home.

Bullies like that with power are like rabid dogs.

lewhoo• 2 years ago

This is a bit off topic, but I think it's important to counter propaganda. It's not surveillance that makes one a Nazi. The Nazi playbook 101 starts with attacking all unfavorable media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_press), then you unite the fringe by pointing at defenseless minorities and convince your supporters said minorities stand between them and greatness. You relentlessly erode the judicial system so enough people start to believe the laws don't apply to all citizens equally and you call those people the overwhelming majority. And if you don't get what you want you call for violence. If you are honest with yourself you'll see who plays by those rules.

nerdjon4• 2 years ago

We desperately need a way for the people you communicate with to be able to OPT IN (not out, out should be default) of companies looking at your communications.

As an iPhone user who has removed Google as much as possible out of my life, I have basically zero control over what happens with my messages when I send it to people on Android. Same with email, my contact information (particularly if they just allow any app to get their contacts), etc.

Put simply we are beyond the point that just because information is on your phone that it means all of it is "your" information and you alone can consent to it.

Particularly if it's sensitive texts, photos, whatever. But it shouldn't matter how sensitive it is.

WhackyIdeas5• 2 years ago

True. I think as soon as you type a message in to your iPhone you have no way of really knowing either.

I don’t trust Apple at all, naturally, but I possibly like them a bit more than I like Google.

Apple will likely try to violate our personal data and messages at some point if they see Google getting away with it. That’s how it works. One chip at a time. They might even be compelled to do it by law with a gag order.

nerdjon4• 2 years ago

While I don't really know, I have more confidence in it with an iPhone user particularly if we are using iMessage thanks to E2E.

However the contacts issue is a problem on iOS as well and I think it would be somewhat trivial for Apple to address that for any contacts that are associated with an iPhone user. Make it so the user can allow apps on someone else's phone to get their information (I am not implying this is easy, but some of the parts to facilitate this may already be there).

However it is also important to look at that Apple has been pushing the other way and working on implementations to make complying with those orders impossible. While currently iPhone backups are a major problem right now there have been multiple reports that they are working on E2E encryption of their entire iCloud system.

So at the moment I have far more trust in them considering their entire business model isn't built on gathering up as much information as possible.

sunnysogra• 2 years ago

In my opinion, Forbes is not a reliable source. Additionally, every email and document sent through Google essentially grants them permission to extract ad-targeting information. Furthermore, data stored on Google Cloud and SaaS hosted at These days, No document is safe and private on internet.

skywhopper• 2 years ago

This author is asking Google's chatbot, Bard, about this feature and reporting it as if its responses are fact. It is incredibly irresponsible to present quotes from Bard as fact or as official Google communication. It ends up making for a very confusing article (complete with a multi-paragraph late addition with more non-fact-based speculation about Apple features that might or might not be coming nine months from now?!) that has absolutely no useful information.

As for what has actually been announced (LLM-based writing assistance within Google Messages), do people actually want chatbots to write their text messages for them? I certainly don't. But what a terrible world we'll be living in if "AI" anti-features like this take hold. Next to no real-world utility from LLM tech, but just one more layer of inhumanity injected into our worsening communication. This is a sure way to send messages you don't mean, but it's even worse because there's probably another LLM on the other end, summarizing all meaning and personality out of the messages anyway. So all text-based human communication will soon be reduced to a neverending string of misunderstandings thanks to the LLM-telephone game happening between you and your contacts.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39159527

keshavatearth• 2 years ago

Very poor article.

9to5's leak shows an option of chatting to bard in google messages and this article takes that to make the point that all your messages will be shared with Google.

reference article: https://9to5google.com/2024/01/18/google-messages-bard/ This is more like those indie tools that send message to chatgpt from your texts app.

And that's gonna be not-encrypted anyway.

Google Update Reveals AI Will Read All Your Private Messages

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