Was their only evidence the screenshot they included? It’s seems more likely that Google could have been looking for phrases like “Let’s look at it” rather than the term “Zoom”.
Right. Another thing is that it's not clear whether they're inserting an advertisement into the conversation in a way that's visible to the other person, or if they're only trying to bring up on-screen help for the local user. The former seems much, much more intrusive than the latter. I'd still like the option to turn off either of them, but I don't really consider Clippy-esque eagerness to be sinister as much as presumptuous and annoying.
That's exactly what it is. In the Messages app if you enable Assistant Suggestions it'll usually give you quick replies based on the context of the conversation and sometimes offer app suggestions like set a calendar event or make a call. And you can turn it off if you don't want it.
>I don't really consider Clippy-esque eagerness to be sinister as much as presumptuous and annoying.
I would give you that if Google was a small company without much experience in the field. But they're, what, the largest tech company that exists? There is no way this was approved without MANY conversations about the end user experience and what this actually does/is perceived.
At some point, benefit of the doubt goes out the window. And I would argue that a company the size of google should no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
This definitely is a features of the SMS app that comes with Android. Its the new AI features that offers hints and auto completions, so its just offering a suggestion based on Look rather than Zoom. largely #fakenews
if you are using SMS, and are talking to a friend and say something like "lets meet up for lunch", after the SMS is sent itll prompt you to share your location OR search restaurants.
But, I really dislike how Google often gets a free pass (from the tech community) on these things, and frankly, I prefer the sensationalized reality over our more accurate one because it rightfully puts pressure on them to stop messing up so often.
How often does Google get to say "whoopsie daisy, our silly AI messed up again" before we need to start asking them serious questions like "why is there an AI making recommendations in the first place when those recommendations have such a high probability of preferring Google products"?
The problem with these types of arguments with soft algorithms like machine learning is that the answer probably lies somewhere in between in the most literal way (it has non-zero influence from many input features). Accepting this ambiguity is where companies like Google/FB can get a free pass by blaming the automated algorithm.
You could even create intentional situations where you know how the algorithm will behave because you know the data you are training on but still have the option to chalk up mistakes to 'accidental'.
"let's look at it" could be anything. this is an sms android app, the place where google does not mine your data (like gmail) for it to recommend duo it needs to know context, "join zoom" could be a trigger, but "let's look at it" would lead to to many false positives to be a real option.