Comment on How to turn off Gemini in Gmail — and why you should | Proton
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Proton has their own AI bullshit:
At least it’s not rummaging around your email though.
Yeah but lumo is basically just a side gimmick thing that isn’t integrated with the rest of their suite.
It’s basically the equivalent of a self hosted small LLM that you don’t have to fuck around with setting up.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with LLMs as a tool. The problem is the misuse, misapplication and over scaling of them.
If they were all just one off tools like lumo that are basically slightly more advanced digital assistants they would be fine.
I mean, I get that, but why is Proton offering one? What value do I get from Proton’s LLM that I wouldn’t get from any other company’s LLM? It’s not privacy, because it’s not end to end encrypted. It’s not features, because it’s just a fine tuned version of the free Mistral model (from what I can tell). It’s not integration (thank goodness), because they don’t have access to your data to integrate it with (according to their privacy policy).
I kind of just hate the idea that every tech company is offering an LLM service now. Proton is an email and VPN company. Those things make sense. The calendar and drive stuff too. They have actual selling points that differentiate them from other offerings. But investing engineering time and talent into yet another LLM, especially one that’s worse than the competition, just seems like a waste to me. And especially since it’s not something that fits into their other product offerings.
It truly seems like they just wanted to have something AI related so they wouldn’t be “left behind” in case the hype wasn’t a bubble. I don’t like it when companies do that. It makes me think they don’t really have a clear direction.
Ah; as I recall, it’s because they polled users and there was an overwhelming “yes please”, based on Proton’s privacy stance.
Given proton is hosted in EU, they’re likely quite serious about GDPR and zero data retention.
Lumo is interesting. Architecturally I mean, as a LLM enjoyer. I played around with it a bit, and stole a few ideas from them when I jury rigged my system. Having said that, you could get a ton more with $10 on OpenRouter. Hell, the free models on there are better than lumo and you can choose to only use privacy respecting providers.
I played around with it a lot yesterday, giving it documentation and asking it to write some code based on the API documentation. Just like every single other LLM I’ve ever tried, it just bungled the entire thing. It made up a bunch of functions and syntax that just doesn’t exist. After I told it the code was wrong and gave it the right way to do it, it told me that I got it wrong and converted it back to the incorrect syntax. LLMs are interesting toys, but shouldn’t be used for real work.
I have a laptop with 48GB of VRAM
???
The AMD GPU in some Frameworks have 8GB of vram.
It’s integrated graphics so it uses up to half of the system RAM. I have 96GB of system ram, so 48GB of VRAM. I bought it last year before the insane price hikes, when it was within reach to normal people like me.
No one is forcing you to use it. Having a european AI like Lumo that encrypts transcripts is great in comparison to shady big tech companies. Yes I know the full context is sent each time the AI wants to generate something. But still, I’m happy they offer it.
Its good to clarify that it’s not end to end encrypted like their email because its not clear from their marketing wording that its not. Its very easy to presume “encrypted” is the same encryption process they are known for on their email.
The flip side of that coin is that it is a separate tool you don’t have to use. You can choose to use as many or few of their products as you wish (its not forced on you).
It’s also a plus that there is SOME encryption and attempts at privacy vs every other alternative besides self hosting.
I’ve personally found lumo to be very useful in troubleshooting computer issues that I’m unfamiliar with. I’ve learned a lot from using it, and the researching was faster than scouring forums myself and presented to me in a single pane. Its just a tool similar to a web browser. I choose a browser that helps me be private and I choose an AI tool that does the same, but I don’t expect either to actually keep me private.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I don’t necessarily have a problem with offering AI. Especially in actually-useful contexts. I have a problem with it being forced on me in unwanted ones.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I have a problem with encryption possibly being a thing of the past because users I write with will put all incoming messages through some LLM because they can‘t be arsed to actually read and reply themselves.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Since when does email have encryption?
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean in general. It doesn‘t matter what you use because the AI software will be installed on their phones.