Google offers bargain: Sell your soul to Gemini, and it'll give you smarter answers

Google on Wednesday began inviting Gemini users to let its chatbot read their Gmail, Photos, Search history, and YouTube data in exchange for possibly more personalized responses.

Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, Gemini and AI Studio, announced the beta availability of Personal Intelligence in the US. Access will roll out over the next week to US-based Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers.

The use of the term "Intelligence" is more aspirational than accurate. Machine learning models are not intelligent; they predict tokens based on training data and runtime resources. 

Perhaps "Personalized Predictions" would be insufficiently appealing and "Personalized Artificial Intelligence" would draw too much attention to the mechanized nature of chatbots that now attracts active opposition. Whatever the case, access to personal data comes with the potential for more personally relevant AI assistance.

Woodward explains that Personal Intelligence can refer information from Google apps like Gmail, Photos, Search ...