9 ms·

That's the system I work on! Please feel free to ask any questions. All opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer.

Mindwipe 2y ago
Does anyone at Google care that you're trying to replace Assistant with this in the next few months and it can't set a timer yet? (I mean it will tell you it's set a timer but it doesn't talk to the native clock app so nothing ever goes off if you navigate away from the window.)
- hnuser123456 2y ago
  I doubt the guy working on the code sandbox can do anything about the overall resource allocation towards ensuring all legacy assistant features still work as well as they used to. That being said, I was trying to navigate out of an unexpected construction zone and asked google to navigate me home, and it repeatedly tried to open the map on my watch and lock my phone screen. I had to pull over and use my thumbs to start navigation the old fashioned way.
- arebop 2y ago
  The Assistant can't reliably set timers either, though I guess 80% is considerably better than 0. Still, I think it used to be better back before Google caught a glimpse of a different squirrel to chase.
- 7bit 2y ago
  It can't do shit, especially in some EU countries, where it can do even less shit. Setting timers reminders, calendar events. Nothing. If they kill the assistant, I'll go Apple, no matter how much I hate it.
  - GrayShade 2y ago
    Just tested, you need to enable "Gemini Apps", but they remember your interactions for 3, 18 or 36 months instead of 3 days.
    - 7bit 2y ago
      Yeah, I disabled that when I tested it. No go for me, but thanks for informing me!
    - Mindwipe 2y ago
      Gemini Apps doesn't offer the ability to talk to the clock app on Samsung devices.
- iury-sza 2y ago
  I keep reading people complaining about this but I can't understand why. Gemini can 100% set timers and with much more subtle hints than assistant ever could. It just works. I don't get why people say it can't. It can also play music or turn on my smart lamps, change their colors etc. I can't remember doing any special configuration for it to do that either. Pixel 9 pro
  - jdiff 2y ago
    I certainly can't get it to reliably play music on my Pixel 8. Mostly it summons YT Music, only occasionally do I get my music player, and sometimes I merely get "I'm an LLM, I can't help you with that." And you used to be able to say "Find my phone" and it would chime and max screen brightness until found. Tried that with Gemini once, and it went on with very detailed instructions on using Google or Apple's Find My Device website (depending on what type of phone I owned), maybe calling it from another device if it's not silenced, or perhaps accepting that my device was lost or stolen if none of the above worked. Did find it during that lengthy attempt at being helpful though. Another fun example, weather. When Gemini's in control, "What's the weather like tonight?" gets a short ramble about how weather depends on climate, with some examples of what the weather might be like broadly in Canada, Japan, or the United States at night. Unlike Assistant where you could learn to adapt to its unique phrasing preferences, you just flat out can never reliably predict what Gemini's going to do. In exchange for higher peak performance, the floor dropped out the bottom.
- dgunay 2y ago
  I dislike Google's (mis)management of Assistant as much as the next guy, but this just has not been my experience. I can tell Gemini on my phone to set timers and it works just fine.
- ChadNauseam 2y ago
  I have a rooted pixel with a flashed custom android ROM, which should be a nightmare scenario for gemini, and it can set timers just fine (and the timers show up in the native clock app)
- nosrepa 2y ago
  I just want the assistant voice. I hate the Gemini ones.
  - whatevertrevor 2y ago
    I'm with you on that. I prefer a human trying to sound like a robot instead of a robot trying to sound human.
hnuser123456 2y ago
Is the interactive python sandbox incompatible with thinking models? It seems like I can only get the interactive sandbox by using 2.0 flash, not 2.0 flash thinking or 2.5 pro.
- topsycatt 2y ago
  That's a good question! It's not incompatible, it's just a matter of getting the flow right. I can't comment too much on that process but I'm excited for the possibilities there.
  - hnuser123456 2y ago
    Oh, I see Gemini can run code as part of the thinking process. I suppose the sandbox that happens in was the target of this research, while code editing in Gemini Canvas just has a button to export to Colab for running. The screenshots in the research show a "run" button for generated code in the chat, but I'm not seeing that exact interface. In any case, I share your excitement.
    - topsycatt 2y ago
      Canvas actually has a mix of this sandbox (with a different container) and fully client-side. The "run" option for generated code was removed due to underutilization, but the sandbox is still used for things like the data analysis workflow and running extensions amongst other things. It's really just a general purpose sandbox for running untrusted code server-side.
      - hnuser123456 2y ago
        Is there a way for you to campaign to return the run button for common queries for code examples? It's probably the most powerful educational tool ever invented, to be able to see how the human language description turns into strange computer code which turns into resulting output. If you guys can get it secure enough, it's a killer feature.
seydor 2y ago
you re the hacker or the google?
- topsycatt 2y ago
  The google
  - lugao 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    Question: how does it feel inside google in terms of losing their lunch to OpenAi? Losing here is very loose, I don’t think OpenAI won yet but seems to have made a leap ahead of google in terms of marker share and we know google was sitting on tons of breakthroughs and research. Any panicking or internal discontent at google’s product policies? No need to answer if you’re uncomforable that your employer may hold you responsible for what you write here.
    - MyelinatedT 2y ago
      From my perspective (talking very generally about the mood and environment here), it’s important to remember that Google is a very, very big company with many products and activities outside of AI. As far as I can see, there is a mix of frustration at the slowness of launching, optimism/excitement that there are some really awesome things cooking, and indifference from a lot of people who think AI/LLMs as a product category are quite overhyped.
      - dataflow 2y ago
        > Google is a very, very big company with many products and activities outside of AI. Profit is what matters though, not number of products. The consumer perception is that Search rakes in the largest profits, so if they lose that, it doesn't matter what else is there. Thoughts?
      - 2y ago
fragmede 2y ago
Do you think "hacked Gemini and leaked its source code" is an accurate representation of what happened here?
- topsycatt 2y ago
  I'm on the Google side of the equation. I think the title is a bit sensationalized, but that's the author's prerogative.
  - devdudect 2y ago
    When are we going to be able to run sandboxed php code?
    - topsycatt 2y ago
      We could, it's just not high up on the priority list. Any particular reason you want php?
      - alienbaby 2y ago
        Possibly they are mildly insane
      - egeozcan 2y ago
        Next step is gemini hosting Personal Home Pages.
      - 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
        >75% of the web's server-side code is php. most of that is WordPress, but lots of people customize it, and being able to write your own themes, plugins, etc is a big deal
      - ipaddr 2y ago
        Why would you want to run anything else?
    - simonw 2y ago
enoughalready 2y ago
Have you contemplated running the python code in a virtual environment in the browser?
KennyBlanken 2y ago
Can you get someone to fix the CSS crap on the website? When I have it open it uses 40-50% of my GPU (normally ~5% in most usage)...and when I try to scroll, the scrolling is jerky mess?
ryao 2y ago
I imagine you need to make and destroy sandboxed environments quite often. How fast does your code create a sandboxed environment? Do you make the environments on demand or do you make them preemptively so that one is ready to go the moment that it is needed? If you make them on demand, have you tested ZFS snapshots to see if it can be done even faster using zfs clone?
- luke-stanley 2y ago
  I use ZFS, but isn't the situation the sandbox is in totally different? Why would it be optimal?
  - RunningDroid 2y ago
    I believe they were referring to the use of ZFS snapshots for a Copy-on-Write type setup
  - ryao 2y ago
    If you are making sandboxes, you need to put the files in place each time. With ZFS clones, you can keep referencing the same files repeatedly, so the amount of changes to memory needed to create an environment are minimized. Let’s say the sandbox is 1GB and each clone operation does less than 1MB of memory writes. Then you have a >1000x reduction in writing needed to make the environment. Furthermore, ZFS ARC should treat each read operation of the same files as reading the same thing, while a sandbox made the traditional way would treat the files as unique, since they would be full copies of each other rather than references. ZFS on the other hand should only need to keep a single copy of the files cached for all environments. This reduces memory requirements dramatically. Unfortunately, the driver has double caching on mmap()’ed reads, but the duplication will only be on the actual files accessed and the copies will be from memory rather than disk. A modified driver (e.g. OSv style) would be able to eliminate the double caching for mmap’ed reads, but that is a future enhancement. In any case, ZFS clones should have clear advantages over the more obvious way of extracting a tarball every time you need to make a new sandbox for a Python execution environment.
    - 2y ago
wunderwuzzi23 2y ago
That's cool. I did something similar in the early days with Google Bard when data visualization was added, which I believe was when the ability to run code got introduced. One question I always had was what the user "grte" stands for... Btw. here the tricks I used back then to scrape the file system: https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/exploring-google-bard-vm/ https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/exploring-google-b...
- flawn 2y ago
  It says in the article - Google Runtime Environment
- jemfinch 2y ago
  grte is probably "google runtime environment", I would imagine.
- waych 2y ago
  The "runtime" is a google internal distribution of libc + binutils that is used for linking binaries within the monolithic repo, "google3". This decoupling of system libraries from the OS itself is necessary because it otherwise becomes unmanageable to ensure "google3 binaries" remain runnable on both workstations and production servers. Workstations and servers each have their own Linux distributions, and each also needs to change over time.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Of course, this meant that some tools got stuck on some old glibc from like 2007.
    - waych 2y ago
      IIRC Google has a policy whereby all google3 binaries must be rebuilt within a 6-month window. This allows teams to age-out support for old versions of things, including glibc. grte supports having multiple multiple versions of itself installed side-by-side to allow for transition periods ("v5" in the article).
jwlake 2y ago
Is there any reason it's not documented?
ed_elliott_asc 2y ago
This is why hacker news is so cool

Mindwipe 2y ago

Does anyone at Google care that you're trying to replace Assistant with this in the next few months and it can't set a timer yet? (I mean it will tell you it's set a timer but it doesn't talk to the native clock app so nothing ever goes off if you navigate away from the window.)

hnuser123456 2y ago
I doubt the guy working on the code sandbox can do anything about the overall resource allocation towards ensuring all legacy assistant features still work as well as they used to. That being said, I was trying to navigate out of an unexpected construction zone and asked google to navigate me home, and it repeatedly tried to open the map on my watch and lock my phone screen. I had to pull over and use my thumbs to start navigation the old fashioned way.
arebop 2y ago
The Assistant can't reliably set timers either, though I guess 80% is considerably better than 0. Still, I think it used to be better back before Google caught a glimpse of a different squirrel to chase.
7bit 2y ago
It can't do shit, especially in some EU countries, where it can do even less shit. Setting timers reminders, calendar events. Nothing. If they kill the assistant, I'll go Apple, no matter how much I hate it.
- GrayShade 2y ago
  Just tested, you need to enable "Gemini Apps", but they remember your interactions for 3, 18 or 36 months instead of 3 days.
  - 7bit 2y ago
    Yeah, I disabled that when I tested it. No go for me, but thanks for informing me!
  - Mindwipe 2y ago
    Gemini Apps doesn't offer the ability to talk to the clock app on Samsung devices.
iury-sza 2y ago
I keep reading people complaining about this but I can't understand why. Gemini can 100% set timers and with much more subtle hints than assistant ever could. It just works. I don't get why people say it can't. It can also play music or turn on my smart lamps, change their colors etc. I can't remember doing any special configuration for it to do that either. Pixel 9 pro
- jdiff 2y ago
  I certainly can't get it to reliably play music on my Pixel 8. Mostly it summons YT Music, only occasionally do I get my music player, and sometimes I merely get "I'm an LLM, I can't help you with that." And you used to be able to say "Find my phone" and it would chime and max screen brightness until found. Tried that with Gemini once, and it went on with very detailed instructions on using Google or Apple's Find My Device website (depending on what type of phone I owned), maybe calling it from another device if it's not silenced, or perhaps accepting that my device was lost or stolen if none of the above worked. Did find it during that lengthy attempt at being helpful though. Another fun example, weather. When Gemini's in control, "What's the weather like tonight?" gets a short ramble about how weather depends on climate, with some examples of what the weather might be like broadly in Canada, Japan, or the United States at night. Unlike Assistant where you could learn to adapt to its unique phrasing preferences, you just flat out can never reliably predict what Gemini's going to do. In exchange for higher peak performance, the floor dropped out the bottom.
dgunay 2y ago
I dislike Google's (mis)management of Assistant as much as the next guy, but this just has not been my experience. I can tell Gemini on my phone to set timers and it works just fine.
ChadNauseam 2y ago
I have a rooted pixel with a flashed custom android ROM, which should be a nightmare scenario for gemini, and it can set timers just fine (and the timers show up in the native clock app)
nosrepa 2y ago
I just want the assistant voice. I hate the Gemini ones.
- whatevertrevor 2y ago
  I'm with you on that. I prefer a human trying to sound like a robot instead of a robot trying to sound human.

hnuser123456 2y ago

Is the interactive python sandbox incompatible with thinking models? It seems like I can only get the interactive sandbox by using 2.0 flash, not 2.0 flash thinking or 2.5 pro.

topsycatt 2y ago
That's a good question! It's not incompatible, it's just a matter of getting the flow right. I can't comment too much on that process but I'm excited for the possibilities there.
- hnuser123456 2y ago
  Oh, I see Gemini can run code as part of the thinking process. I suppose the sandbox that happens in was the target of this research, while code editing in Gemini Canvas just has a button to export to Colab for running. The screenshots in the research show a "run" button for generated code in the chat, but I'm not seeing that exact interface. In any case, I share your excitement.
  - topsycatt 2y ago
    Canvas actually has a mix of this sandbox (with a different container) and fully client-side. The "run" option for generated code was removed due to underutilization, but the sandbox is still used for things like the data analysis workflow and running extensions amongst other things. It's really just a general purpose sandbox for running untrusted code server-side.
    - hnuser123456 2y ago
      Is there a way for you to campaign to return the run button for common queries for code examples? It's probably the most powerful educational tool ever invented, to be able to see how the human language description turns into strange computer code which turns into resulting output. If you guys can get it secure enough, it's a killer feature.

seydor 2y ago

you re the hacker or the google?

topsycatt 2y ago
The google
- lugao 2y ago
  [flagged]
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  Question: how does it feel inside google in terms of losing their lunch to OpenAi? Losing here is very loose, I don’t think OpenAI won yet but seems to have made a leap ahead of google in terms of marker share and we know google was sitting on tons of breakthroughs and research. Any panicking or internal discontent at google’s product policies? No need to answer if you’re uncomforable that your employer may hold you responsible for what you write here.
  - MyelinatedT 2y ago
    From my perspective (talking very generally about the mood and environment here), it’s important to remember that Google is a very, very big company with many products and activities outside of AI. As far as I can see, there is a mix of frustration at the slowness of launching, optimism/excitement that there are some really awesome things cooking, and indifference from a lot of people who think AI/LLMs as a product category are quite overhyped.
    - dataflow 2y ago
      > Google is a very, very big company with many products and activities outside of AI. Profit is what matters though, not number of products. The consumer perception is that Search rakes in the largest profits, so if they lose that, it doesn't matter what else is there. Thoughts?
    - 2y ago

fragmede 2y ago

Do you think "hacked Gemini and leaked its source code" is an accurate representation of what happened here?

topsycatt 2y ago
I'm on the Google side of the equation. I think the title is a bit sensationalized, but that's the author's prerogative.
- devdudect 2y ago
  When are we going to be able to run sandboxed php code?
  - topsycatt 2y ago
    We could, it's just not high up on the priority list. Any particular reason you want php?
    - alienbaby 2y ago
      Possibly they are mildly insane
    - egeozcan 2y ago
      Next step is gemini hosting Personal Home Pages.
    - 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
      >75% of the web's server-side code is php. most of that is WordPress, but lots of people customize it, and being able to write your own themes, plugins, etc is a big deal
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      Why would you want to run anything else?
  - simonw 2y ago

enoughalready 2y ago

Have you contemplated running the python code in a virtual environment in the browser?

KennyBlanken 2y ago

Can you get someone to fix the CSS crap on the website? When I have it open it uses 40-50% of my GPU (normally ~5% in most usage)...and when I try to scroll, the scrolling is jerky mess?

ryao 2y ago

I imagine you need to make and destroy sandboxed environments quite often. How fast does your code create a sandboxed environment? Do you make the environments on demand or do you make them preemptively so that one is ready to go the moment that it is needed? If you make them on demand, have you tested ZFS snapshots to see if it can be done even faster using zfs clone?

luke-stanley 2y ago
I use ZFS, but isn't the situation the sandbox is in totally different? Why would it be optimal?
- RunningDroid 2y ago
  I believe they were referring to the use of ZFS snapshots for a Copy-on-Write type setup
- ryao 2y ago
  If you are making sandboxes, you need to put the files in place each time. With ZFS clones, you can keep referencing the same files repeatedly, so the amount of changes to memory needed to create an environment are minimized. Let’s say the sandbox is 1GB and each clone operation does less than 1MB of memory writes. Then you have a >1000x reduction in writing needed to make the environment. Furthermore, ZFS ARC should treat each read operation of the same files as reading the same thing, while a sandbox made the traditional way would treat the files as unique, since they would be full copies of each other rather than references. ZFS on the other hand should only need to keep a single copy of the files cached for all environments. This reduces memory requirements dramatically. Unfortunately, the driver has double caching on mmap()’ed reads, but the duplication will only be on the actual files accessed and the copies will be from memory rather than disk. A modified driver (e.g. OSv style) would be able to eliminate the double caching for mmap’ed reads, but that is a future enhancement. In any case, ZFS clones should have clear advantages over the more obvious way of extracting a tarball every time you need to make a new sandbox for a Python execution environment.
  - 2y ago

wunderwuzzi23 2y ago

That's cool. I did something similar in the early days with Google Bard when data visualization was added, which I believe was when the ability to run code got introduced. One question I always had was what the user "grte" stands for... Btw. here the tricks I used back then to scrape the file system: https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/exploring-google-bard-vm/ https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/exploring-google-b...

flawn 2y ago
It says in the article - Google Runtime Environment
jemfinch 2y ago
grte is probably "google runtime environment", I would imagine.
waych 2y ago
The "runtime" is a google internal distribution of libc + binutils that is used for linking binaries within the monolithic repo, "google3". This decoupling of system libraries from the OS itself is necessary because it otherwise becomes unmanageable to ensure "google3 binaries" remain runnable on both workstations and production servers. Workstations and servers each have their own Linux distributions, and each also needs to change over time.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Of course, this meant that some tools got stuck on some old glibc from like 2007.
  - waych 2y ago
    IIRC Google has a policy whereby all google3 binaries must be rebuilt within a 6-month window. This allows teams to age-out support for old versions of things, including glibc. grte supports having multiple multiple versions of itself installed side-by-side to allow for transition periods ("v5" in the article).

jwlake 2y ago

Is there any reason it's not documented?

ed_elliott_asc 2y ago

This is why hacker news is so cool