Gemini is in danger of turning into a complete co-pilot

Gemini has a creep problem.

A few years ago, this little sparkling icon started appearing in all our Google apps. Gemini in your inbox! Gemini in your Google Drive! It was slow at first, and easy to adjust, but something changed in the last few months. Gemini creeps. They’re popping up in all sorts of places with a relentless pace, and personally, they’re starting to really piss me off.

AI fatigue everywhere is familiar to anyone who has ever used Windows 11. Microsoft has done its best to put Copilot shortcuts on every surface it can find, To extreme discomfort From many users. Likewise, we’ll no doubt hear about all sorts of new Gemini features at Google I/O this week, and I’m praying that Google learns from Microsoft’s mistakes as it unleashes them in our Workspace apps. Nobody likes creeps.

I’m actually the type of person who enjoys being a Gemini too. I used it to program an application to find out what routine tasks I have time to do on a given day. I chat with Gemini on every Android phone I test, and I’ve started downloading the app on iPhones as well. This would put me in the top 10% of Gemini users who don’t work at Google. I also came up with the AI ​​overviews that Google puts at the top of every search result these days. Sure, he was there early Days of glue on your pizza. It is possible that they contribute to this The death of the open web. But recently I’ve found it reliable enough when the risks are low. I’ll Google how often I water my lavender plants, or how long I bake potato chips at 400 degrees; So far, the AI ​​reviews haven’t killed my lavender or the potatoes haven’t cooked well.

But everyone has their limits, and I think Gemini’s latest foray into Google Docs happened when I reached my limit. It’s a constantly glowing icon at the bottom of the window, and if you make a mistake when hovering your mouse over it, you’ll get… Complete toolbar with suggested prompts To get Gemini to write to you. Blogging is my country craftThank you very much, so I shut this nonsense down immediately. Now, even the Gemini icons that I was able to tune out before are starting to bother me. I think at some point I gave Chrome permission to put the Gemini shortcut in the menu bar at the top of the MacBook’s home screen, because there was a little sparkle there, staring at me the whole time. When did that happen? Have I been scammed? It’s all a little bit in Haley Joel Osment Sixth sense. They are everywhere.

Then there’s the issue of AI as a threat to the developer community — you know, the people Google is addressing at I/O. Tech companies are laying off software engineers left and right, saying they don’t need as many warm bodies as AI coding tools improve. I’m not sure Gemini’s offer to help write your cover letter will be very comforting when you’re applying for jobs that are currently being eliminated by artificial intelligence.

This is all before you consider companies like Google They don’t win any popularity contests As they push to build massive data centers across the country. But even without getting into all that, it’s just a bad user experience to constantly force people to use tools they don’t want. I would expect this kind of behavior from a Meta application, not one of the programs I use at work. I don’t want to “Ask Gmail” when I open my inbox, I want to type three keywords and find the email I’m looking for. I don’t want to chat with Gemini about my Chrome tabs. I don’t want to “know the highs and lows” of a folder in my Google Drive. I want AI tools when I find them useful. Other than that, I just want to get this stuff off my face, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Photography by Alison Johnson/The Verge