Can We Turn Off AI Tools From Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta? Sometimes... (seattletimes.com) 28
"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:4, Informative)
Currently in google search you can add '-ai' and it will not display that garbage at the top of the results.
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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.
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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.
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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 purchasabl
One answer from Varofakis - Technofeudalism. (Score:3)
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:2, 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 col
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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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&udm=14 (Score:3)
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:3)
... 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.
A simple experiment (Score:3)
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: (Score:2)
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 the
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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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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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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.
What are we turning off? (Score:2)
You don't have to use these (Score:2)
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.
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)