Comment by thorum
18 hours ago
The honest version of this feature is that Gemini will act as your personal assistant and communicate on your behalf, by sending emails from Gemini with the required information. It never at any point pretends to be you.
Instead of: “Hey garry, my daughter woke up with the flu so I won't make it in today -Pete”
It would be: “Garry, Pete’s daughter woke up with the flu so he won’t make it in today. -Gemini”
If you think the person you’re trying to communicate with would be offended by this (very likely in many cases!), then you probably shouldn’t be using AI to communicate with them in the first place.
I don't want Gemini to send emails on my behalf, I would like it to write drafts of mundane replies that I can approve, edit, or rewrite, just like many human assistants do.
> If you think the person you’re trying to communicate with would be offended by this (very likely in many cases!), then you probably shouldn’t be using AI to communicate with them in the first place
Email is mostly used in business. There are a huge number of routine emails that can be automated.
I type: AI, say no politely.
AI writes:
Hey Jane, thanks for reaching out to us about your discounted toilet paper supplies. We're satisfied with our current supplier but I'll get back to you if that changes.
Best, ...
Or I write: AI, ask for a sample
AI writes: Hi Jane, thanks for reaching out to us about your discounted toilet paper supplies. Could you send me a sample? What's your lead time and MOQ?
Etc.
Jane isn't gonna be offended if the email sounds impersonal, she's just gonna be glad that she can move on to the next step in her sales funnel without waiting a week. Hell, maybe Jane is an automation too, and then two human beings have been saved from the boring tasks of negotiating toilet paper sales.
As long as the end result is that my company ends up with decent quality toilet paper for a reasonable price, I do not care if all the communication happens between robots. And these kinds of communications are the entire working day for millions of human beings.
Assuming that you actually had a human personal assistant why would there be any offense?