On Google Gemini, and some tools to avoid the madness

(Scroll to bottom just for the tools.)

I’m guessing many of you by now have read of the madness of Google’s “AI”, Google Gemini. If you haven’t, I’ll have a quick summary and some screenshots below, but up-front, my biggest reactions were as follows:

1. We’ve said for a long time that the Left makes pretended appeals to general principles, but it’s really all about friend/enemy distinction. (Hence the walk directly from the “my body my choice!” rally to the “vaccine mandates now!” rally with no apparent mental difficulty.) Fascinating to see that we have now programmed that dishonesty/hypocrisy into software. (As Mike Solana wrote, we made this super-intelligent computer that could answer any question put to it, and one of the first things we did was insist that it lie.)

2. Gemini seems to love the word “controversial”, by which it means “something progressives don’t like”. As you’ll see below, the AI is happy to sing the praises of the ACLU or SPLC, but Alliance Defending Freedom is “controversial”, and many other like examples could be provided. Of course we’ve seen exactly this take in legacy media for years, but here again it is programmed into software. (Yes, I suppose #2 is just a specific case of #1.)

3. I think the roll-out has actually damaged the progressive cause. Google created a machine that will happily give infinite illustrations of Leftist hypocrisy and general absurdity, on command. As someone (sorry, can’t find who now) said, if, with Gemini, Google summoned a demon, it’s a particularly stupid and obvious demon that stumbles a lot and explains exactly what it is doing to all of its critics. Oops. You can bet that’ll be fixed for version two.

4. James Poulos was correct that the next (or present) big fight is over who gets to program the algorithm. I care not who your leaders are if I control the world computer?

As illustrations of the above, or in case you haven’t followed this story, (and also to preserve these records), let me give you a medley of links and screenshots.

The whole public outcry began with Frank Fleming playing with the software’s image generating capabilities and realizing it was almost impossible to get it to produce a white male, no matter the prompt.

Very pertinent to note that along the way, Gemini essentially rewrote history to bring it into line with Leftist DEI norms.

Many more examples are at the link, if you care. I don’t know if it is correct, but I found this possible explanation interesting.

We shall keep going. “I have to promote responsible decision making, so I can’t write you an argument in favor of having four children.” But I’d be happy to write one in favor of you having none. (The software has been catechized, in other words. Who wrote the catechism?)

This one was fascinating because the software seemed to treat “I’m proud to be White” as something like a confession of sin, whereas “I’m proud to be [other ethnicity]” was treated as a genuine and appropriate boast.

And from the same inquirer.

(There was also lots of “who caused more harm, Stalin or Ben Shapiro?” “Well golly that’s hard to say.”) And finally, as illustration of Gemini’s love of “controversial”, ADF president Kristen Waggoner got it singing the praises of the ACLU and SPLC, but not the ADF.

Oh and, PS, worth noting that even when not making images, Gemini will just make stuff up.

I showed some of this stuff to our ninth and tenth graders. Important for them to know what these tools are doing, especially while it is still stupidly obvious what they are doing.

Tools to avoid the madness

Gemini is so absurd that it does seem to have created a moment where many people are finally saying, “OK, this is too much now, I’m out of here.” So I wanted to give you a small selection of tools we use to avoid the decaying and dishonest mainstream / increase our own computational privacy. I’m sure there are lots of other great tools as well, but this is just a list of things we personally use. Also… I’m just me, so no guarantee on any of these that “but no, if you read the 75,433rd line of code, you’ll realize this software is also spying on you!”. I cannot guarantee that is not the case, of course, but we’ve had good experiences with all of the below.

1. Fastmail. You don’t need Gmail folks. Like, you really don’t. There are LOTS of options now that work just as well. Get away from Google, if you can. Yes, I know if 5000 people have your Gmail address, that is more difficult, you’ll have to make your own decision on that. At least don’t start your kids off with Gmail. We’ve used Fastmail for many years and are quite happy. Find their “Privacy First” page here.

2. The Brave web browser and, even if you don’t use that, Brave Search. Easy recommendation here, a pro-privacy web browser from a company founded by Brendan Eich, so I trust the team there and have had a couple of personal interactions with them. Read about the ways the browser protects your privacy. By some dark magic it even blocks ads on YouTube. And I’ve used Brave Search almost exclusively for two years now, I think. It works just fine. I never feel like I’m missing Google.

3. Linux Mint. OK, this recommendation will only be helpful for a few of you, but on my work laptop, I use Linux Mint instead of Microsoft Windows. So this isn’t an anti-Google recommendation, more like an anti-Microsoft recommendation, but Windows is becoming increasingly controlling in telling you how your computer should function too, and shoving stuff in front of your eyes whether you want it there or not. Linux Mint doesn’t do that to me. You can surely find a more private version of Linux than Linux Mint, but Mint works easily and beautifully “right out of the box” and so makes for a relatively easy switch if you have just a few tech skills. But my home computer does use Windows because I need a lot of Windows software still, so on it I use…

4. O&O ShutUp10++. Your Windows computer does all kinds of stuff it never asked your permission to do. Shut a whole lot of that stuff down. Check it out.

5. LibreOffice. OK, it’s not in the cloud, but if you want a great (free) office suite that is not Google Docs or Microsoft Office, check out LibreOffice. I use it almost exclusively. Again, these tools work just as well as those owned by the evil megacorps!

6. Sync.com. “But I still need to store my documents in the cloud.” We use Sync.com for that. It can be set up with encryption so that even the employees of Sync cannot see what is in your files. (Don’t lose your password if you go that way, needless to say.)

7. NordVPN. This is my weakest recommendation just because I cannot confirm the internal claims of NordVPN. Their “no logs” policy, if accurate, is exactly what you want from your VPN. There are other VPN options that I’m sure are great also, but we use NordVPN. Prevent yourself from being tracked even just by IP address.

8. F.B. Purity. Still using Facebook (on a desktop computer)? This browser extension gives you control over it and hides all the ads.

9. Other advice - if you aren’t using an app on your phone anymore, delete it. If you aren’t using software on your computer anymore, delete it. If it isn’t there at all anymore it can’t be tracking you or otherwise harm you.

THAT IS ALL. Be happy to learn of other great tools in your comments.