Gemini can't be disabled on Google Docs

[wcoenen]

This just weird Twitter rage. The user seems to think the private information in their tax return will leak, just because Gemini tried to summarize it.

To back this up, they reference the story about Gemini chats "leaking" on the public internet. What actually happened there was that people were creating publicly viewable chats via gemini.google.com/share/ links, and some of those got posted on social media and were indexed.

[nitinreddy88]

Its not the matter of getting leaked. Without my consent, reading my documents to do something should be illegal

[Sayrus]

Title is sensationalized. According to the thread, Gemini is enabled only after opening Gemini. Ingestion is enabled until Gemini is closed.

> OK, more testing and I think I've figured it out (and it's still bad!). It seems that if you've ever clicked the Gemini button for a type of document then it remains open whenever you open another of that type--and therefore automatically ingests and summarizes it. So, e.g...

[rezonant]

What is the problem here? Google already has your document, all they are doing with Gemini is running it through a bunch of transformers and spitting back some information. The act of sending input into an LLM does not itself train the LLM on that data (these systems don't "learn" via execution of normal input/output).

Is the concern that Google would consider your use of Gemini on this document as consent to use it for future training?

[michaelt]

From the user's perspective:

1. Some people (e.g. some artists) don't like generative AI as a matter of principle, seeing it as soulless, corporate, and entirely trained on stolen data.

2. Many people resent Clippy-style popup features. They appear at the most inconvenient times, and everyone knows they're mostly for the benefit of the product manager with a user count KPI. And the harder they get pushed, the more people resent them.

3. The distinction between things-known-from-training-data, things-known-from-context and things-known-from-RAG and so on is pretty opaque to most users - and not clearly guaranteed by the documentation. If it's an assistant that can schedule reminders, can find things in your e-mails and google drive, and it promises "Personal Results" where "your communication requests will be used to improve your experience with Gemini" the distinctions are pretty ambiguous.

4. The LLM industry norm is to play fast and loose with training data.

[zarzavat]

Unless explicitly promised otherwise, the assumption is always that anything being passed to a LLM API may be retained for various reasons. That’s the expectation that’s been set by the industry.

[viraptor]

You should have the control of your information per use case / purpose. The ad networks are also Google's property - would you be fine with the Adsense looking at all your private documents? GDPR got that right - you consent to a specific usage, not to a free-for-all.

[aniviacat]

The title does not match what is said in the post. The post implies there is indeed a setting to turn it off.

[baud147258]

except the setting doesn't seem to work cf https://x.com/KevinBankston/status/1811194932931027298

[fragmede]

It’s disabled on $JOB and my personal Google Workplace. Author opted into some bard thing and then forgot about it.

[egorfine]

Rationally I understand that no training is happening and this is no different than slicing a substring for preview purposes.

Emotionally it makes my blood boil though. I am absolutely with the author.

I had to leave Sentry for crash reports because they did report things to me I have never asked them to watch for in the first place. Same vibe.

[whoitwas]

Is there a setting or not? Should we migrate from docs? Is it time to finally cut the cord officially de-Googlify?

[michaelmior]

Does it matter that much if there is a setting or not? Google already has your documents anyway. They're not being used for training either way.

[viraptor]

A best time to get off Google was before the previous problems. The second best is now. (applies after every Google issue)

[kkfx]

Hem... How "private" can be something existing on someone else computer, not just as mere data, but also the code to use and visualize them?

[31337Logic]

I never use Google docs. This is a great reminder of why I have no reason to start. Thanks.

[hexage1814]

Don't use Google if you don't want Google to know what you are doing.

[cynicalsecurity]

Google is not a privacy company. Don't use their services if you are looking for privacy.

[Gant1]

"Gemini is your always-on AI assistant across Google Workspace" So user buys a product without even reading the product page, then complains about product? m'kay

[rvnx]

Except if was added recently, and most users are long-time users.

[hiddencost]

Try some empathy? A user is upset and scared. AI is scary and hard to understand. We owe our users a sense of safety and trust.

[BSDobelix]

>Try some empathy?

NO! Don't put your private documents on someone else's computer, that's easy.

But if you do, don't put it on the hard drive of a company that makes money from your personal data for advertising, it sounds almost childish to explain.

[robertlagrant]

It's not clear who you're replying to, but this isn't a conversation with a person. What's being discussed - away from the person who published this - are the truth claims in the post.