Google chatbot starts reading emails on request. How to use Gemini? | Artificial intelligence

O chatbot Google’s smart device, Gemini, is now capable of searching, reading and summarizing emails and user documents in Portugal. The Gemini extensions, launched in September, arrive this Thursday in Portuguese lands, making it possible to authorize (or not) the chatbot with Google’s generative AI using information from several of the company’s applications and services, including Gmail and YouTube, to answer user questions.

This allows you, for example, to ask Gemini to help plan a friend’s birthday dinner, by reading images exchanged about the event (Gmail), searching for nearby restaurants (Google Maps) or cake recipe videos (YouTube). . Google says the information will not be used to show personalized ads, nor will it be seen by human reviewers.

“With extensions, Gemini can save you time when finding relevant information in Google applications and services”, explains the Google team in a statement.

PÚBLICO explains how to activate the services, what is shared with Google and the precautions to be taken. Confirm the information given by the chatbot remains essential – emails or newsletters with more complex formatting can lead the system to share incorrect information. Gemini also reveals difficulties with temporal concepts in Portuguese (this is the case of “most recent” or “oldest”).

What is Gemini?

Gemini is the chatbot with generative AI from Google, available since July 2023 in the European Union. The launch follows the proliferation of new AI tools that write essays, generate images and solve equations on demand. It all started with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 – the chatbot OpenAI was the first to launch a tool that uses AI to understand human language and produce original content.

At the base of the technology is the GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer), the English acronym that was attached to the name of the chatbot from OpenAI. You transformers are linguistic models created to find patterns in sequences of data.

Initially, Google’s version was known as Bard. It works similarly to Microsoft’s Copilot (initially Bing Chat) and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Unlike these, the chatbot Google does not generate images – the functionality was temporarily suspended when the system began producing portraits with historical errors in an unsuccessful attempt to promote diversity.

How do you activate the system?

You can see the extensions that Gemini has access to in the Gemini settings. chatbot. To do this, you need to access the page online from Gemini (https://gemini.google.com) > Settings > Extensions. In Portugal, Gemini can only be accessed through a browser online. Contrary to tools from OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Microsoft (Copilot), app of Gemini has not yet reached European Union countries.

Extensions available in site include Google Workspace (Document Editor, Drive and Gmail), YouTube, Maps and Google’s flight and hotel search system. Extensions are enabled by default, but this does not mean that the chatbot of Google is authorized to use them.

For example, you must give Gemini explicit permission to read the emails from Google. The option is available in Gmail settings (top right) > see all settings > activate the option “Smart features and personalization in other Google products”.

How is the system used?

The different extensions can be used on the Gemini page (gemini.google.com) via combination @extension + request. For example, “@Gmail, summarize the last three messages sent by Karla Pequenino”. Or “@Youtube, summarize the last video published by the Jornalpublicovideos account”.

Google says that it will soon also be possible to access the system directly through the Google search engine, by activating the chatbot with @Gemini. I.e, “@Gemini, use @Youtube to find recipes for vegan cream puffs.”

At first use, it seems like a useful tool to save time, collecting information from several sources simultaneously. However, the answers must be checked: the Gemini system identifies a video published about a month ago as the most recent from PÚBLICO (it is not). The same happens when asked to summarize emails sent from a specific address in Portuguese – it is worth noting, however, that when the order was placed in English, the system did not fail.

Why are the chatbots confuse the information so much?

AI conversation tools are not designed to reproduce facts or verify information. The tools were programmed to respond to requests made by humans based on vast databases. The mission is to generate the response that best fits the context of a conversation. “Confirm the answers”, advises a small footer that is repeated in tools from Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.

This is one of the reasons that lead some education professionals to advocate lesson planning that explains how to use these tools, also addressing their flaws.

What information does Google have access to?

By activating the Gmail extension, the Gemini system is authorized to use the information in emails to answer user questions. The same happens with the Drive extension (Google cloud storage) or Docs (word processor). According to Google, the information is not shared with human reviewers, nor is it used for personalized advertising or to train Gemini’s system.

The authorizations given can be revoked at any time in the settings. You can view summaries and set the length of time that Google keeps conversations on Gemini in Gemini Activity settings. chatbot.