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Here's the announcement from Google: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assistive-writing-suggestions-in.html https://workspaceupdates.googleb

• ajross 5y ago
  Exactly. The paranoia among the plugged in libertarian set (quite frankly Andreesen is one of the worst) gets a little over the top sometimes. This is very clearly Google chasing another product's feature set. They're not even the market leader in this space!
  • cool_dude85 5y ago
    I don't use grammarly, but do they really have suggestions to change e.g. "landlord" as non-inclusive and suggest "proprietor" instead?
• twofornone 5y ago
  >As it turns out, a lot of people choose to be inclusive and non-inflammatory. Ideologues deliberately gloss over the fact that the "inclusiveness" has become inflammatory. Edit: our D&I consultant does not allow us to use words like "analysis", "independent", "lead", "driven", and "competitive" (there is a whole laundry list) in our job postings to foster "inclusiveness" [0]. The implication that these traits, which are virtues in my culture, are undesirable, is offensive, as is this top-down culturally mandated feminization. Google is doing the same thing here. Its a minority imposing their culture onto others. Let's not even get started on the views that we are supposed to have regarding, say, gender. The same "research" is undoubtedly underpinning Google's "inclusive" suggestions. Is this really benefitting anybody? It's worse than mere coddling, it's antithetical to the equality movement, fosters a toxic workplace for straight men, and we should all be pushing back against it. 0. https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/list-of-gender-coded-words/ https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/list-of-gende...
  • otterley 5y ago
    > "inclusiveness" has become inflammatory And crosses became inflammatory when Black people started getting civil rights in the U.S. I, for one, refuse to cede any influence whatsoever to bigots attempting to control our discourse by throwing temper tantrums about inclusive language.
    • jaywalk 5y ago
      Yeah, I guess I'm a bigot because I don't want to go into countless places and change my git repos from "master" to "main" for the default branch, for example.
      • otterley 5y ago
        There's room to disagree on whether this change is useful or necessary. But there's a sizable gap between having a difference of opinion and being a jerk about it. I've personally made the change because I see no harm in it, and it makes my colleagues happier. Being kind and considerate has low cost and high rewards.
        • homonculus1 5y ago
          You aren't being kind, you're being a bully with a thin veneer of social piety. Your standard of behavior leads directly to tyranny of the most demanding and intolerant minority and you aren't even brave enough to own it as your own. We have no obligation to do or say anything other than "What you're telling me to do is unreasonable, you can get stuffed."
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• ugjka 5y ago
  >As it turns out, a lot of people choose to be inclusive and non-inflammatory. No, they just don't want to get fired
  • etchalon 5y ago
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        • jlawson 5y ago
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          • etchalon 5y ago
            • jlawson 5y ago
              Okay, so the response is, "You deserve to be hurt because you're harmful so shut up"? Anyway, You're twisting words to try to pretend that "woke scolding" exclusively means "asking people to stop one-sidedly hurting others for no real reason". So I'll ask again in a narrower form that is harder to deliberately misinterpret: Telling me I'm privileged (especially as a rationale for excluding me from certain groups at work or school) hurts me. It makes me angry and/or sad. What's your response?
• prionassembly 5y ago
  One would hope that social progress means that people learn inclusiv[ity|eness] as an abstract ethical concept and, from that, language and other social practices follow. Instead we're down a route where we're force-fed a kind of saccharine social justice orthodoxy that can only have two outcomes: hypocrisy or backlash.
  • sacrosancty 5y ago
    I think the previous generations of leftists achieved their goals of inclusivity but now that we have it, it turns out it didn't eliminate wage gaps and all that so new leftists have decided we need to turn it up to 11 instead of stepping back to figure out what's actually causing those differences between groups. They can't allow themselves to consider that it might be something other than sexism/racism because that's an existential threat to their ideology. So the only way forward is ever more aggressive "inclusiveness".
• memish 5y ago
  It's authoritarian and the new heresy, full stop. It's no different than evangelicals who try to impose their morality on everyone else. "That word is sinful. Here's the proper word and idea." They also think it's simply about being a good person and defend it with that frame. To be a good person use the correct words and correct ideas as defined by us, the good people. If you disagree you are a bad person. http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html
  • paulgb 5y ago
    Oh, come on. It's not telling you what to change, it's giving you suggestions. Even the suggestions can be turned off. Most paying customers of Google are using it for business communications. This is a useful feature for them. Language (like everything) has become politicized, so people have a stronger reaction to this than when Word added grammar suggestions back in the day, but it's basically the same feature and Microsoft had a more dominant market position then than Google does now. (Full disclosure, I'm a former Googler, but that has little to do with this)
    • fknorangesite 5y ago
      > Language (like everything) has become politicized It wasn't ever not politicized.
      • paulgb 5y ago
        You're right. Maybe I should have said hyper-politicized.
    • lin83 5y ago
      > It's not telling you what to change, it's giving you suggestions. By giving you suggestions it's telling you that it thinks you are wrong. There is no way around that. It's a judgement plain and simple and that changes people's behaviour. > Even the suggestions can be turned off. Let's be honest. No one changes the defaults. > Language (like everything) has become politicized, ANd now my word editor is picking a side...
• dgan 5y ago
  I feel triggered when a recruiter contacts in a non-gendered form, while I clearly look a like an average MALE on my picture. Do I look feminine? Haven't you seen my picture? Is it a mass-message designed to be as much sly, sneaky and greasy way as possible?
  • farias0 5y ago
    Well, it turns out people are more interested in avoiding upsetting people through gendered language than through non-gendered language. You can't please everyone, and your worries do seem less important if you ask me.
    • dgan 5y ago
      My worries seem important to me, if you ask me ...
      • farias0 5y ago
        Well, thoughts and prayers. We're fighting a different fight.
    • colpabar 5y ago
      This is a great example of how a lot of these methods of "avoiding upsetting people" seem to really be ways for people to make themselves feel good for doing something that they think is nice, like how almost every latino has no problem with the gendered form and has never heard of "latinx".
      • farias0 5y ago
        Why? Using non-gendered language avoids misgendering people, and even though there are people who are offended by not being gendered this seems like a great trade off.
        • kaba0 5y ago
          I am all for trying to be as inclusive as it gets and to be honest, English’s gendered pronouns are just unnatural to me due to my native tongue not being gendered to begin with. But other than the old “he/she” (annoying) repeated thing or perhaps “they”, some other constructs feel pretty forced. I feel that without starting a conversation where both sides partake, no consensus will ever happen. Or, probably the foremost should be the actual targeted demographic be consulted, because in plenty of cases these are not coming from them and they don’t even approve of these changes, making it the old feel-good changes for the sake of it.
• paxys 5y ago
  No one would complain if they offered grammar add-ons in Google Docs. People could turn it on if they liked, and could choose their specific ruleset depending on what they were writing. Pushing it as a default to everyone is the problem here.
  • crackercrews 5y ago
    The big issue for me is that it's all or nothing. I would like to have grammar assistance. I do not want that to be mixed in with the Google's PC rules du jour.
• dijonman2 5y ago
  I don’t accept it nor do I pander to woke bs. I’m a decent person and I’ll use any language I want. It should be opt in not opt out.
• coffeefirst 5y ago
  Yes, that's absolutely what happened. The problem is, by doing that in a platform of Google's size, they have effectively declared themselves the arbiters of what is inappropriate. I suppose all copy editing features do the same, but being the arbiter of spelling is easier, since spelling isn't morally charged and you can just go with Merriam-Webster for US English. And I suppose if they were to use that power to flag old slurs, including those people might not know, especially for non-native speakers, great, they might catch some embarrassing errors. Instead they decided "landlord" is bad word, for some reason, and now I will make fun of them.
  • dehrmann 5y ago
    > old slurs And there are so many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_pejorative_terms_for_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_pejorative_terms_for_...
• kyleblarson 5y ago
  The Overton window for "non-inflammatory" has shifted drastically in the last 10 years, and all signs point to that continuing.
• frogpelt 5y ago
  Please don't pretend that people choosing to be inclusive is the same being forced to be inclusive by an overlord.
  • inglor_cz 5y ago
    overlord ~~~~~~~~ This word insinuates that a tyrant can only be of male gender. Plenty of women have broken the glass ceiling on this one. Please consider using the word "overperson".
• chernevik 5y ago
  It's a constant censorship presence looking over your shoulder and reminding you to say things "properly". It's an effort to infect your instincts and thinking.
  • brenns10 5y ago
    Ah yes, the kind of constant presence that has a quick toggle to never appear again...
    • chernevik 5y ago
      One that you have to find, and that your administrator might disable. If they want to offer it as an opt-in, fine, but this is intrusive.
    • teakettle42 5y ago
      Which you’ll be censured for disabling if you use words that would otherwise be called out as “non-inclusive”.
    • JetAlone 5y ago
      On my android phone's home screen, there is a "discover" page if you move the view towards the left that opens up a news feed. It is easy to accidentally swipe onto it and I find it kind of annoying. One of my friends asked me how to get rid of it. It took me something like an hour to figure out how to turn off the "discover" feed. I learned that they have moved the toggle in a past version. Yesterday, I accidentally scrolled onto my discover page and saw that google has added a new distinct information section to it. I don't feel like having these headlines clamouring for my attention whenever I scroll. Now I will have to learn how to turn that off. These "auto-opt in" features have a psychological attrition effect on the user as the toggle moves, and people's time and attention is distracted elsewhere, and also by the features themselves as they are added and cannot be customized. You should update your model of this comment section's subject matter to account for this fact.
• deleted 5y ago
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• woojoo666 5y ago
  > As it turns out, a lot of people choose to be inclusive and non-inflammatory. I think you are making the implicit assumption here that there is a single path towards "inclusive" and "non-inflammatory". But that's not always the case. For example, some people prefer the term GSRM (Gender-Sexual-Romantic Minority [1]) in favor of LGBT because they see it as more inclusive. Others see it as problematic [2]. Should Google Docs push one term over the other? Or just not make a stance? But how do they choose when to make a stance? Because once they do start making a stance, it has massive influence over the public. And that's the real issue; these features allow companies to have greater and greater influence and power over the public discourse. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority#Controversy
• diebeforei485 5y ago
  I don't use grammarly. Does grammarly tell you to correct "landlord" to "property owner"?
• thefunnyman 5y ago
  Also worth noting that editing recommendations are a part of the M365 office suite. I agree with those voicing concern as AI is very new still and can have huge implications at FAANG scale, but I’m not surprised to see Google at this.