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AI coming through our google drives and reading our stuff without permission has been happening for a while. Google implemented their AI service, Gemini, in a way where it cannot be turned off. Gemini comes with “safety features” to block “harmful content”.

This is what is considered prohibited use according to their privacy and terms:

And of course, Google’s AI can see our information, because we give it to them. By using their products, you give them information that they collect for their own purposes. This is a long documented phenomenon that did not start with AI, but has certainly reached a new level of concerning as a result.

This has been their business model for years. They scan your documents, your shared images and videos, your search queries, and they use it. This is plainly stated in their privacy policy.

It’s to sell to advertisers to give you personalized advertisements. It’s also so they can cover their own asses if someone shares illegal content (such as CP) on their servers. Their terms of service dictate that they will remove anything distributed under their services that violate their terms, and in order to find out if it violates it, they have to scan it. They claim it is not used to train their software (I found conflicting info on whether this is true, but it’s what their ToS on AI say), but that doesn’t mean they don’t look at it or decide to get rid of it.

This is how drives that have pirated shows and movies are taken down. They are scanned, flagged, and removed. Yes, someone CAN report it for them, but now we’ve reached the stage of AI doing it instead. There are very few regulations on this at least in the US, and the practice of looking at our so-called “protected” information for advertising or safety measures is such an open secret I had to do multiple projects on it in school when taking journalism/mass media classes. Hell, just look for yourself on how Google makes money and they proudly explain that accounts are on a constant betting war for individualized advertisements.

I know this was mainly about how they’re doing this NOW, but I think it’s equally important to know they’ve been gearing up to this and it was the most natural evolutionary step. It’s hard for me to source my personal experience, but I certainly can source that they have the power to do this at all. Tristan Harris, former Design Ethicist at Google, first released his concerns over Google’s monopoly over our information and minds in 2013.

Google has only grown in power since then. I’m just going to link some stuff about general AI and Google ethical implications now because I don’t know where to take this. Even if you don’t believe my personal account, I’d heavily encourage doing research on what Google can do with what you’ve already given to them, and decide for yourself if it’s worth the convenience.