Can We Turn Off AI Tools From Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta? Sometimes... (seattletimes.com) 80
"Who asked for any of this in the first place?" wonders a New York Times consumer-tech writer. (Alternate URL here.) "Judging from the feedback I get from readers, lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in AI — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore."
The companies rely on user activity to train and improve their AI systems, so they are testing this tech inside products we use every day. Typing a question such as "Is Jay-Z left-handed?" in Google will produce an AI-generated summary of the answer on top of the search results. And whenever you use the search tool inside Instagram, you may now be interacting with Meta's chatbot, Meta AI. In addition, when Apple's suite of AI tools, Apple Intelligence, arrives on iPhones and other Apple products through software updates this month, the tech will appear inside the buttons we use to edit text and photos.
The proliferation of AI in consumer technology has significant implications for our data privacy, because companies are interested in stitching together and analyzing our digital activities, including details inside our photos, messages and web searches, to improve AI systems. For users, the tools can simply be an annoyance when they don't work well. "There's a genuine distrust in this stuff, but other than that, it's a design problem," said Thorin Klosowski, a privacy and security analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, and a former editor at Wirecutter, the reviews site owned by The New York Times. "It's just ugly and in the way."
It helps to know how to opt out. After I contacted Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google, they offered steps to turn off their AI tools or data collection, where possible. I'll walk you through the steps.
The article suggests logged-in Google users can toggle settings at myactivity.google.com. (Some browsers also have extensions that force Google's search results to stop inserting an AI summary at the top.) And you can also tell Edge to remove Copilot from its sidebar at edge://settings.
But "There is no way for users to turn off Meta AI, Meta said. Only in regions with stronger data protection laws, including the EU and Britain, can people deny Meta access to their personal information to build and train Meta's AI." On Instagram, for instance, people living in those places can click on "settings," then "about" and "privacy policy," which will lead to opt-out instructions. Everyone else, including users in the United States, can visit the Help Center on Facebook to ask Meta only to delete data used by third parties to develop its AI.
By comparison, when Apple releases new AI services this month, users will have to opt in, according to the article. "If you change your mind and no longer want to use Apple Intelligence, you can go back into the settings and toggle the Apple Intelligence switch off, which makes the tools go away."
The proliferation of AI in consumer technology has significant implications for our data privacy, because companies are interested in stitching together and analyzing our digital activities, including details inside our photos, messages and web searches, to improve AI systems. For users, the tools can simply be an annoyance when they don't work well. "There's a genuine distrust in this stuff, but other than that, it's a design problem," said Thorin Klosowski, a privacy and security analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, and a former editor at Wirecutter, the reviews site owned by The New York Times. "It's just ugly and in the way."
It helps to know how to opt out. After I contacted Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google, they offered steps to turn off their AI tools or data collection, where possible. I'll walk you through the steps.
The article suggests logged-in Google users can toggle settings at myactivity.google.com. (Some browsers also have extensions that force Google's search results to stop inserting an AI summary at the top.) And you can also tell Edge to remove Copilot from its sidebar at edge://settings.
But "There is no way for users to turn off Meta AI, Meta said. Only in regions with stronger data protection laws, including the EU and Britain, can people deny Meta access to their personal information to build and train Meta's AI." On Instagram, for instance, people living in those places can click on "settings," then "about" and "privacy policy," which will lead to opt-out instructions. Everyone else, including users in the United States, can visit the Help Center on Facebook to ask Meta only to delete data used by third parties to develop its AI.
By comparison, when Apple releases new AI services this month, users will have to opt in, according to the article. "If you change your mind and no longer want to use Apple Intelligence, you can go back into the settings and toggle the Apple Intelligence switch off, which makes the tools go away."
currently in google search (Score:5, Informative)
Currently in google search you can add '-ai' and it will not display that garbage at the top of the results.
Re:currently in google search (Score:5, Interesting)
There's an easier way: just set your default search engine to DuckDuckGo. I've been Google free for many years now.
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Re:currently in google search (Score:4, Informative)
There's an easier way: just set your default search engine to DuckDuckGo. I've been Google free for many years now.
That's a long way to say "I use Bing". Privacy aside, I find Google's results are still better than Bing's.
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There's an easier way: just set your default search engine to DuckDuckGo. I've been Google free for many years now.
That's a long way to say "I use Bing". Privacy aside, I find Google's results are still better than Bing's.
Then you approve of whatever Google says you will approve of.
Re: currently in google search (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't know whether Google's results are better. DDG's are good enough that I don't feel the need to use another tool.
Re: currently in google search (Score:1)
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I think startpage.com uses google under the hood, but scrubs all the user's details. I default to DDG but do occasionally use Startpage when I'm not happy with DDG's results. Usually the Startpage results are no good either, but they do tend to be different.
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Privacy aside, I find Google's results are still better than Bing's.
Then you haven't looked recently. Bing Copilot is better than Google.
Re:currently in google search (Score:4, Informative)
That's a long way to say "I use Bing". Privacy aside, I find Google's results are still better than Bing's.
Bing and DDG do not return the same results. While DDG does use Bing's underlying database they do have their own search return algorithm as well as their own web crawlers and additional data sources that augment what Bing provides them.
Re:currently in google search (Score:4, Informative)
While I'm not as off-the-cuff about my search engine--I've been a use-Google-because-it-works person since it first came into existence--I did recently make the switch to DDG on my phone.
The AI situation feels worse on the phone, as the '"summary" fills up the entire screen, and I scroll past this summary like an advertisement because while it may contain useful information, I'm rarely in the mood to fact-check someone's AI.
And even before the AI, Google already had me scrolling past way too many purchasables ("What is the melting point of aluminum" does not mean that I'm shopping for a new stew pot.)
And after all that scrolling, I get a precious few actual links, of which 3 out of 7 times the only helpful link is Wikipedia.
So for me, the Google search engine is feeling a little artless. And if there's no art to searching, I'll just use whatever gets me to usable results faster.
Made that change about three weeks ago: Google still on my laptop, DDG on my phone. Actual search results seem to be on par with one another, but DDG has a lot less foo. I imagine soon I'll switch over the laptop as well.
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I'm rarely in the mood to fact-check someone's AI.
I find this to be a very intriguing comment. Does this reluctance to fact-check AI results extend to non-AI results?
I don't have any problems questioning all AI results because I also question all search engine results, Wikipedia info, and basically everything I read online as well as offline. I'm curious if there are people that don't do this already. I view suspicion toward today's AI similarly to suspicion toward yesterday's Wikipedia.
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Wikipedia has references which can often quickly be checked or even just skimmed for sufficient verification. Search results lead to websites, many of which you will know whether or not can be trusted from experience.
Output from bullshit generators* have none of that, and nothing comparable can be added with today's technology.
* https://link.springer.com/arti... [springer.com]
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I find this to be a very intriguing comment. Does this reluctance to fact-check AI results extend to non-AI results?
Because AI responses have no context or sources, the only way to fact-check them is to do the same research you'd need to in order to find the answers manually yourself anyway. This completely removes any value of the AI answer.
Like the other poster said, more trustworthy sources of information either provide their primary sources directly (Wikipedia), give you context to help gauge the reliability of the information (a published paper or government agency), or at the very least offer a clear source so tha
Re: currently in google search (Score:2)
lol the 7yo analogy is spot on
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This was a while ago, so it's vaguely possible that it has since improved, but I'm not highly motivated to try it again, given my experience last time. I just installed a browser extension that hides all that AI-generated overview garbage from Google results. It's not ideal, but it's working for now, mostly. Except f
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I'm assuming you just don't want to see it, and I'd assume a lot of us use ublock:
www.google.com##.M8OgIe > div:nth-of-type(2) > div
Seems to be working for now.
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Interesting. Ask google how to turn its AI off: ..."
https://www.google.com/search?q=turn+off+google+search+ai [google.com]
And the overview will say "While Google doesn't allow users to disable AI Overviews in search results,
Prepend -ai to the same search, and voila:
https://www.google.com/search?q=-ai+turn+off+google+search+ai [google.com]
Pretty good evidence that the LLM is designed to tell you what Google wants you to hear, rather than simple enhancing the results for your benefit. But, it's been a l
One answer from Varofakis - Technofeudalism. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a book called Technofeudalism [amazon.com] where Varofakis gives his answer. I get less and less convinced he's wrong.
Are they gathering your peronal data (Score:3, Interesting)
Like it or not your data is going to be used to train an AI, largely for the purposes of replacing you at work.
You can't fix that with the free market. It's worth trillions. No amount of not using Microsoft Software is going to have an effect on that. You could try living in a cave, but pretty much all the land on earth that can support life is owned by someone and they'll kick you out. So you can't really do that either.
This gets fixed with collective action, or it doesn't get fixed at all. And if it doesn't get fixed it ends in Techno Feudalism.
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The king doesn't care if you buy his iPhones. He does care about you stealing them. They don't need trillions to satisfy their greed, they just need to take what you used to have. The biggest rush for greed is not seeing number get bigger, but knowing everything is under their unilateral ownership. Other persons are optional.
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He's the only person on slashdot naive enough to think he's going to change the outcome of this coming election by posting communist propaganda to reddit and slashdot. That's why he's a bit more off the rails than usual lately and he thinks there's some kind of conspiracy to downmod him.
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The king doesn't care if you buy his iPhones. He does care about you stealing them. They don't need trillions to satisfy their greed, they just need to take what you used to have. The biggest rush for greed is not seeing number get bigger, but knowing everything is under their unilateral ownership. Other persons are optional.
So don't buy one? I personally haven't. Right now I use a pixel 8a with grapheneos. All of the google crap is isolated and not even doing anything unless I specifically need it, which is pretty rare.
Apple fans, especially ones like NoMoreACs and ArchieBunker, love the idea of being owned by Tim Cook and fight tooth and nail against any attempt to break the walled garden they've voluntarily imprisoned themselves in. ArchieBunker in particular is proud of his 8" apple logo tattoo just above is ass crack. And
Re:Are they gathering your peronal data (Score:2)
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Also to add for those that think replacing everyone will cause those trillions to dry up: The king doesn't care if you buy his iPhones. He does care about you stealing them. They don't need trillions to satisfy their greed, they just need to take what you used to have. The biggest rush for greed is not seeing number get bigger, but knowing everything is under their unilateral ownership. Other persons are optional.
I still get stuck wondering what happens once all wealth is divided up among the top two of three oligarchs. How will they continue to extract wealth from a population that has no wealth. I know they've started to shift towards data-hoarding, but even that will have its limits. If none of us are able to sustain ourselves, we won't really be concentrating on creating data either. So, what's the end game? A few people fighting over the trillions of tokens that humanity has produced while the rest of us just d
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to train their AIs? Then no, you can't turn it off.
Ublock already makes this easy.
www.google.com##.M8OgIe > div:nth-of-type(2) > div
Not rocket science.
Like it or not your data is going to be used to train an AI, largely for the purposes of replacing you at work.
Will you ever stop with the luddite shit? The world as we know it couldn't even exist if you had your way. At one point 1 in every 13 women were switchboard operators. It was predicted at one time that, in order for every household to have a dedicated phone line (in those days, multiple households would share a single line) it would take more women than the country even had at the time to have them full
If more than a handful of people do it (Score:2)
It's just like with the ad blockers which are gradually becoming unusable. Not all at once mind you. Frog boiling and all that.
And that's just Google there's a hundred other companies you're going to do business with that are going to do all sorts of things to scrape your data to train their AIs. You can't block them all. And you certainly can't stop using all the
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Then they will just route the traffic through their main URLs without anything that you can block on like they do with the advertisements.
What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't even use a discrete URL.
It's just like with the ad blockers which are gradually becoming unusable. Not all at once mind you. Frog boiling and all that.
They work fine for me. What the hell are you trying to block them with? APKs hosts file engine?
And that's just Google there's a hundred other companies you're going to do business with that are going to do all sorts of things to scrape your data to train their AIs.
Do you even understand the underlying technology? They have no need to scrape anything, when you use their shit you're already wrapping it up in a nice tagged format for them to readily parse. The only way you don't send that to them is to just not use their site. Not rocket science.
You can't block them all. And you certainly can't stop using all their services. Many of them have more or less made themselves essential to modern living
What services are you even talking about? Google? Shit, I sto
I'm not opposed to automation (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'm talking about is a fundamental breakdown of markets. Companies cease to exist as does capitalism. Instead you have a handful of infinitely wealthy oligarchs and in a small handful of people serving them. The rest of us live in squalor for their amusement.
What we have
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But you're misunderstanding something. In our current system only owners of the capital get the benefits of the automation. This means that yes, only rich people will have access to technology.
If that's the case, then what the hell are you even doing here?
What I'm talking about is a fundamental breakdown of markets. Companies cease to exist as does capitalism. Instead you have a handful of infinitely wealthy oligarchs and in a small handful of people serving them. The rest of us live in squalor for their amusement.
What we have going on right now is 3rd industrial revolution. You don't know a lot of history and that's why you're not concerned.
I know it a lot better than you do, actually. You say more random, easily disproven shit on slashdot than anybody else. Not only for history, but basically every subject.
Both industrial revolutions were brutal. There were decades and decades of mass unemployment. We had two massive world wars shortly after those industrial revolutions and it wasn't a coincidence.
No, it really was coincidental.
The first war was basically the last major spat between nobility, effectively the dying breath of feudalism. It literally started over an incident caused by one noble having another one assassinated with the backing of the Kaiser. It continued beca
Read Marx (Score:2)
The nobility didn't just have a spat, it was a World War. Stuff like that doesn't happen in a vacuum. Pressure from automation meant high unemployment and social unrest. Just like today a good 'ole fashion war is a great way to take care of that. You steal some land, get some tribute, get a boost to your local economy and kill off some excess young males (who are now a problem because of automation).
WWII was m
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we can debate his political leanings but he was right about one thing: Money is everything.
Who are you even talking about? Marx?
The nobility didn't just have a spat,
This is exactly what it was.
it was a World War
Not really, it was mostly an European affair with the necessary involvement of all of their colonies. It's also not even the first, nor the second of its kind. Those would have been the Seven Years War and the Napoleonic Wars, respectively. They were every bit as much of a "world" war as the one you're talking about. The first industrial revolution didn't even begin until after that war was almost over, and it was largely confined to Britain.
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No one finds your squalor amusing, step up.
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Luddites does not mean what you think it means. The luddites were not against automation and progress. They were against the profits of that happening being accumulated with the already rich.
Will you ever stop this peak capitalism promotion shit? Text generators are used to make the rich richer and leave the poor with fewer options.
As it stands, AI will become yet another tool to exploit the poor. Heck, it already is.
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Luddites does not mean what you think it means. The luddites were not against automation and progress.
https://www.newyorker.com/book... [newyorker.com]
On December 15, 1811, the London Statesman issued a warning about the state of the stocking industry in Nottingham. Twenty thousand textile workers had lost their jobs because of the incursion of automated machinery. Knitting machines known as lace frames allowed one employee to do the work of many without the skill set usually required. In protest, the beleaguered workers had begun breaking into factories to smash the machines.
Will you ever stop this peak capitalism promotion shit?
Uh...what? I've never taken the stance that capitalism has nowhere else to grow.
As it stands, AI will become yet another tool to exploit the poor. Heck, it already is.
Your crystal ball told you that?
&udm=14 (Score:5, Informative)
This [udm14.org] works... for now. There are also plenty of Firefox addons to add &udm=14 to all your Google searches if you don't want to do it by hand.
"For now" because at some point Google will unilaterally decide to force you to eat AI against your will - just like they decided to force their advertisement down your throat against your will [lifehacker.com] too. Because they can.
The GDPR demands "default off" ... (Score:4, Insightful)
... for any data-collection, and training on user-input certainly qualifies. Well, Meta is already in deep shit with EU law and it seems to be getting worse. Google sort-of got the message, as did Microsoft (although they usually need a few kicks to the balls).
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as did Microsoft (although they usually need a few kicks to the balls).
Microsoft has balls?
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Hahahaha, probably not! They can still be kicked though.
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A simple experiment (Score:1)
Judging from the feedback I get from readers, lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in AI — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore
Now, replace "AI" with "automobiles" and place the text in an imaginary newspaper 120 years ago.
Now, replace "automobiles" with "trains" and place the text in an imaginary newspaper 170 years ago.
We can play this game for a long time.
Re:A simple experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad analogy. Both automobiles and trains a) actually work, and b) are useful to do work (speaking in physics terms of "work").
AI is a mess of statistical manipulation that requires that we provide it our work and cannot do any actual work at all. It literally relies on us to think for it. It can't even become a mature, functional product without us using it. Which is why it's being forced down our throats.
You know what companies used to do? Pay us for our work. Now they just take our usual workflows, in their supposedly free products, and steal work from us. That's what's happening. Wholesale theft of labor.
Your cars and trains never did that, did they? Did you ever go for a drive and find out that you had lost 80 lbs. and needed an IV?
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AI is a mess of statistical manipulation that requires that we provide it our work and cannot do any actual work at all. It literally relies on us to think for it. It can't even become a mature, functional product without us using it. Which is why it's being forced down our throats.
That is very much it. The "forcing" is trying to force success. What it actually demonstrates is a raising desperation as real-world benefits continue to be marginal or fail to materialize. Of course, success cannot be forced. You need a somewhat useful product or a very flashy one to make success possible. Generative AI is neither.
As a side-note, just last week, I had to correct a mess made by somebody that though "AI" could do the coding for them. Then about 70 students did it better. Turns out that if yo
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Bad analogy. Both automobiles and trains a) actually work, and b) are useful to do work (speaking in physics terms of "work").
Yes, but in their first 5 to 10 years of existing, they were as bad as they could be.
That was what my analogy was trying to convey, but it seems I was unsuccessful.
AI is a mess of statistical manipulation that requires that we provide it our work and cannot do any actual work at all. It literally relies on us to think for it. It can't even become a mature, functional product without us using it.
...for now.
Its next iteration (or refactoring) will be better.
Look up the way the first automobiles worked and behaved, or how horrible the first trains, cars, phones were when they first appeared.
Wholesale theft of labor. Your cars and trains never did that, did they?
I don't recall seeing many stagecoaches or sailboats around lately. Do you know what people of that era said about those "novelty" things? "THEY WILL S
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Yep. But the reality of is that for any one real, here-to-stay innovation, there were 10 or more that were just temporary hypes that left little or nothing behind. LLMs are looking very much like the second type. And even more so because this is _not_ the first AI hype that delivered very little. It must be number 7 or 8 or so. That is a pattern.
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What I wanted to convey, albeit unsuccessfully (must be my lack of eloquence), was that "AI" (yes, the moniker stuck, although it's wrong) is still in an incipient phase, much like first car models, or first trains, or first airplanes, radios, TVs, books even, if we go back enough. They all had limited use (or barely any use for a while), until, well, they matured.
10 or 20 years from now, the scene might be very different. Now, I can't foresee whether it's going to be for the better or worse (mainly because
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Lots of people use a curved monitor, they are very common nowadays.
As a matter of fact, my main monitor is curved, and it's great.
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Audiences weren't that interested beyond the novelty and they didn't really add anything to the experiences, but still "3D Experiences" were forced on us long after the manufactured craze had fizzled out.
Re: A simple experiment (Score:2)
Great examples! Except go back 150 years for Cars and 320 years for Trains.
The common man laughed at Cars. They stunk, broke down a lot, and could be out walked! They were curiosities for the rich for a good 50 years! It wasn't until 50 more years after massive government subsidies in the form of road infrastructure that they really took off for the common man.
Trains were very useful from the get go. But steam and oil powered locomotives took almost 100 years of development. They were mainly used for po
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People complaining about being forced to use an automobile - not complaining that others are using them.
People complaining about being forced to use trains - not complaining that others are using them.
I don't think either of those things happened in any great quantity. People complaining that modern American society forces the use of an automobile, but that was long long long after automobiles were introduced and is due to the popularity of those automobiles in the first place.
What are we turning off? (Score:3)
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All of the above. The proverbial nobody wants neither.
You don't have to use these (Score:2, Flamebait)
There is nothing which says you have to use these products. No one forced you to create an account with any of them. If you get rid of any accounts you currently have and delete your cache and cookies every day, their data becomes less and less valuable, or even worthless.
The way the article is written it makes people believe they have a gun to their head and are being forced to use these companies. As difficult as it is to believe, there are tens of millions of people, myself included, who don't use any
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There is just one valid answer to your statement: No. And go fuck yourself.
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And doing that is both a lot of extra work in itself, and makes the tools much harder to use, and in some cases even worthless. Plus, it doesn't help nearly as much as you seem to believe. There are so many ways to identify you today, from geolocation to typing pattern, that at best all your wasted time doing this can somewhat dilute the data gathered.
And yes, in modern society we have no real option but to use these companies, if we want to interact with others and get things done in a reasonable manner. T
Paradox of plenty (Score:2)
As more and more of what is on the easily searchable internet becomes crap... it makes people who actually know what they are doing that much more valuable. Both to other humans who want to learn, and to the people attempting to train AI with actual content.
What is really hilarious is that many of the AI chatbots have been nerfed on a variety of subjects, so anyone attempting to ask about "forbidden" subjects (like how to batch download data about historical orders you've placed in the past - according to
How do I turn off meta AI in messenger? (Score:1)
Meta AI aims to be a helpful assistant and is in the search bar to assist with your questions. You canâ(TM)t disable it from this experience, but you can tap the search button after writing your query to search how you normally would.
eet fukk (Score:1)
sounds like a job for a browser extension (Score:2)
Why? (Score:3)
Not only non-techies (Score:2)
lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in AI — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore.
This applies to lots of people inside the tech industry as well.
No one asks for anything ever. (Score:2)
Consumers do not ask for new developments. They are biased into iterative improvements on what they already have. It doesn't matter if we're talking about AI or the invention of the automobile. You ask users you'll just get something resistant to change, even when that change may be in their own best interest.
*note: CoPilot is definitely not in their own interest. XD
very useful AI (Score:2)
Google summaries are very useful, since they succinctly summarize all the wrong information so I can safely skip over those sources.
AI has TOO MANY problems (Score:2)