Submitted 4 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Wow that is pretty damning. I hope Google is adding all this stuff in with the replacement of Assistant but it’s Google so I guess they won’t. I replaced Assistant with Gemini a while back but I only use it for super basic stuff like setting timers so I didn’t realise it was this bad.
They did the same shit with Google Now, rolled it into Assistant but it was nowhere near as useful imo. Now we get yet another downgrade switching Assistant with Gemini.
That brief moment in time when we had dirt cheap Nexus phones, Google Now and Inbox was peak Google. Just 5 years later it was all gone.
Such great products. Now we get…image generation, inpainting and a conversational AI. All technically impressive, but those older products were actually functional and solved everyday problems.
I remember using my My Moto X in 2013 and finding Google services actually useful
Yup, Google Now was actually useful and helpful, so of course they had to get rid of it.
When google asked if I wanted to try Gemini I gave it a try and the first time I asked it to navigate home, something I use assistant for almost daily, it said it can’t access this feature but we can chat about navigating home instead - fuck that!
Even though I switched back to assistant it’s still getting dumber and losing functionality - yesterday is asked it to add something to my grocery list(in keep) and it put it on the wrong list, told me the list I wanted doesn’t exist, then asked if I wanted to create the list and then told me it can’t create it because it already exists.
I’ve talk to more logical toddlers!
Go go enshittification!
I don’t think it’s even enshittification (probably costs more to run than Assistant), it’s just Google desperate to find a use for its new AI.
I was thinking about this while posting and absolutely agreed.
It just boils down to how enshittification is defined though, and using ai for everything (where it might not fit or degrade a service) might possibly be valid too.
If you have a Pixel, just put GrapheneOS on it and you won’t ever have to deal with Google’s proprietary bullshit again
Do bank apps work ok on GrapheneOS?
Nope. I just do my banking stuff on my computer instead.
very good, hopefully that lets more people realise that you don’t need LLM garbage being slapped onto everything under the sun
Sorry we’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars. LLM in everything.
Doorbells? LLM.
Streaming service? LLM.
Cheese sandwich? Believe it or not - straight to LLM.
I’m still trying to figure out why the new Chromecast needs AI.
Probably all the same reason Pixels “need” AI.
They should have just merged the two products. Instead of coming up with Gemini, they could have added LLM features to the Assistant. On a Samsung phone, you now have Bixby, Assistant and Gemini lol.
The best part is if you have Google Home/Nest products throughout your house and initiate a voice request you now have your phone using Gemini to answer and have the nearest speaker or display using Assistant to answer and they frequently hear eachother and take that as further input (having a stupid “conversation” with eachother). With Assistant as the default on a phone, the system knows what individual device it should reply to via proximity detection and you get a sane outcome. This happened at a friend’s house while I was visiting and they were frustrated until I had them switch their phone’s default voice assistant back to Assistant and set up a home screen shortcut to the web app version of Gemini in lieu of using the native Gemini app (because the native app doesn’t work unless you agree to set Gemini as the default and disable Assistant).
Missing features aside, the whole experience would feel way less schizophrenic if they only allowed you to enable Gemini on your phone if it also enabled it on each smart device in the household ecosystem via Home. Google (via what they tell journalists writing articles on the subject) acts like it’s a processing power issue with existing Home/Nest devices and the implication until very recently was that new hardware would need to roll out - that’s BS given that very little of Gemini’s functionality is being processed on device and that they’ve now said they’ll begin retroactively rolling out a beta of Gemini to older hardware in fall/winter. Google simply hasn’t felt like taking the time to write and push a code update to existing Home/Nest devices for a more cohesive experience.
Just today I noticed that my Google Home (I believe gen 2) has a new voice.
It’s time to start calling it something else. Google is dead.
Was it ever truly alive? Yes. For one magical summer.
It’s the normal corporate lifecycle. Founders build it up. Workers expand it. Suits take over to monetize everything. A private equity firms squeezes the last live out of it.
But the Nexus 4 was released in the fall?
It is SO shit! I can’t even turn off a light while talking to it through my earbuds! It just forces me to take my phone out and unlock it.
I can’t set a reminder. It was all I used the damn thing for before.
Google set a reminder
Nope now it won’t Whats the point ugh
Why does google feel like they’re playing squid games inside the company? Just with AI overlords besides the rich psychopaths.
laughs in Graphene OS
My next phone probably will be a pixel just so that I can use GrapheneOS
So they replaced a useless and invasive “assistant” with a new shinier useless and invasive “assistant”.
Additionally, that info will be used to inform ads the Google serves to you across its ad delivering products.
Felt like that goes without saying but yes.
I tried it out for a while and yes, it really is as bad as the article implies. I gave it a fair chance for a few weeks and then went back to the old assistant (a task which which gemini was also completely unable to help me with, at one point even gaslighting me and saying I wasn’t using Gemini).
It’s kind of crazy to think about but it seems like Google is just somehow really terrible at AI
More and more you all prove to me that you don’t actually use the products.
Mikina@programming.dev 4 months ago
I stumbled upon the Geminy page by accident, so i figured lets give it a try.
I asked him in czech if he can also generate pictures. He said sure, and gave me examples about what to ask him.
So I asked him, again in czech, to generate a cat drinking a beer at a party.
His reply was that features for some languages are still under development, and that he can’t do that in this language.
So I asked him in english.
Ok, so I asked if he can find me the picture on the web, then.
Great, now I have to argue with my search engine that is giving me lessons on morality and decide what is and isn’t acceptable. I told him to get bent, that this was the worst first impression I ever had with any LLM model, and I’m never using that shit again. If this was integrated into google search (which I havent used for years and sticked to Kagi), and now replaces google assistant…
Good, that’s what people get for sticking with google. It brings me joy to see Google dig it’s own grave with such success.
ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 4 months ago
for anyone else that felt they were left hanging by this 👆 person’s story:
Image
twei@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
Now generate a Beer drinking a Cat
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Cute cat.
Image
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
That gods is shaped almost exactly like my Bad Dragon glass!
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
It generated “cat drinking a beer” just fine for me
CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Are you in the czech republic, speaking in Czech, and presumably not using a VPN?
kokesh@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You have to pay to generate images.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
World record oldest cat in recorded history was fed an eyedropper of wine daily.