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How To Disable Gmail's Annoying New 'Smart Compose' Predictive Typing Feature (vortex.com)
"I've seen this 'Smart Compose' feature described publicly with a range of adjectives," writes Lauren Weinstein, "including intrusive, wonderful, invasive, creepy, accurate, loony, mistaken, helpful, misguided -- well, you get the point, opinions are all over the map...."
My foundational complaint here isn't that Google deployed Smart Compose, but rather that they enabled it by default without providing users even basic related information, including the all important "How the hell do I turn this damned thing off?" -- the very question filling my inbox of late!
So here's how you turn it off. It's easy, IF you know how.
One anonymous reader has another solution. "I'm just using Gmail in HTML-only mode now. Its actually far more usable than their new crap and I'm quite fond of the older look anyway." You could also just stop using Gmail -- but Weinstein thinks it's easier to disable the "Smart Compose feature.
"With the understanding that Google has great AI and is itching to use it whenever and wherever possible, I don't really need it analyzing my email drafts as I type them. At least in my case, its proposed wordings are nearly always -- what's the technical term? -- oh yes, WRONG.
"And the predictions intrusively and continuously interrupt my flow of typing as each one needs to be individually bypassed."
So here's how you turn it off. It's easy, IF you know how.
One anonymous reader has another solution. "I'm just using Gmail in HTML-only mode now. Its actually far more usable than their new crap and I'm quite fond of the older look anyway." You could also just stop using Gmail -- but Weinstein thinks it's easier to disable the "Smart Compose feature.
"With the understanding that Google has great AI and is itching to use it whenever and wherever possible, I don't really need it analyzing my email drafts as I type them. At least in my case, its proposed wordings are nearly always -- what's the technical term? -- oh yes, WRONG.
"And the predictions intrusively and continuously interrupt my flow of typing as each one needs to be individually bypassed."
I think this feature had been going for a couple of days before I noticed it. I guess I'm used to editors doing similar things. But, the implementation also seems to be remarkably non-obtrusive. Nothing seems to have slowed or changed other than I can occasionally tab through a suggestion if I happen to notice it in time. I'll be leaving it on and gradually start using it.
What I find most surprising is that any of the suggestions are actually exactly what I intended to type. A lot of them are.
Of course, we will likely see the required article about some shocking suggestion within days now. I'm surprised it isn't already out there. Someone will sit and spend a few hours working to trigger something so that they can feed someone's agenda with a new viral campaign.
I did note that when typing an email discussing the reason for purchasing a new pair of running shorts that it guessed that I had gained weight and completed a sentence about that appropriately. Some might find that offensive :-)