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Comment by tmikaeld | Hacker News Reader

Impressive! It's too bad it's not possible to opt-out of model training on Googles Gemini (free/paid*) plans.

Which includes:

Conversations, Location, Feedback, Usage information

And specifically this clause:

"Please don't enter confidential information in your conversations or any data you wouldn't want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine-learning technologies."

Update: *There is a Gemini setting here https://myactivity.google.com/u/1/product/bard but it does not explicitly state that it disables training, just activity history.

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This depends on which service you are using, any of the free products allow for training, but the paid services do not.

Allows training on input:

1. Gemini (formerly Bard): https://gemini.google.com/. Policy: https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/13594961. Can opt out of training by disabling history.

2. AI Studio free plan: https://ai.google.dev/.

Does not allow training on input:

1. AI Studio paid plan: https://ai.google.dev/.

2. Google Cloud Vertex AI: https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai. Policy: https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/docs/generative-ai/data-g...

3. Gemini for Workspace (formerly Duet AI for Workspace).

There is a setting on Gemini paid, however it isn't about disabling model training, only activity storage length.

Also (On manual deletion):

"Even when Gemini Apps Activity is off, your conversations will be saved with your account for up to 72 hours to allow Google to provide the service and process any feedback."

And in any case:

"Conversations that have been reviewed or annotated by human reviewers (and related data like your language, device type, location info, or feedback) are not deleted when you delete your Gemini Apps activity because they are kept separately and are not connected to your Google Account. Instead, they are retained for up to three years."

I’m guessing this is more for abuse prevention and regulatory compliance. Google being in the news yet again for some misuse of their AI and journalists spinning that off as Google’s embodiment of values is the last thing that they want or need at this point.

There's still no indication that it disables model training.

The setting is explicitly about the activity history (which is 3-mo auto-delete, 72h minimum).

https://support.google.com/gemini?p=activity_off_retention

"Who has access to my Gemini Apps conversations?

How you can control what’s shared with reviewers

If you turn off Gemini Apps Activity, future conversations won’t be sent for human review or used to improve our generative machine-learning models."

The way I interpret the policy is that if Gemini Apps Activity is off:

1. Conversations after activity is turned off that are linked to your account are retained for up to 72 hours for "safety and security", but are not sent to human reviewers or used for model training.

2. In the event that you submit feedback (eg good/bad response), then the conversation (disassociated from your account) can be used for training. This is also flagged when attempting to submit feedback: "Even when Gemini Apps activity is off, feedback submitted will also include up to the last 24 hours of your conversations to help improve Gemini."

I suspect a good way to omit yourself from data collection would be to include something that looks like PII at the beginning and end of every conversation. I suspect a fake social security number and a first, middle initial, and last name, all next to each other, would be enough. Maybe throw in a DOB in there too.

You sweet summer child.

But the policies! The yearly training sessions!

Lol

Yikes. No use case in medical then?

Google has a specific Medical AI called Med-PaLM that has more stringent PHI/HIPAA compliance.

For enterprise, Google has something called Vertex AI which has a strict privacy policy but you have to pay just like any other typical cloud service.

Presumably Gemini 1.5 will be available there soon.

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