I'm being asked why I think #Google is pulling the standard "Undo" function out many Chrome text input right-click context menus, and replacing that menu selection (without any advance warning or explanation) with their AI-based "Help me write".
I don't know, but I can guess. I suspect it was something like this at a team meeting:
"Hey, word is that we really need to up the AI engagement metrics. What haven't we covered yet? [ laughter ]"
"Well, we could get rid of context menus Undo and replace it with an AI selection. Then when users right-click during text input, they'll get the "Help me write" prompt where they've pretty much always expected undo to be."
"I like that. It'll be right in their faces. Do you think there will be any blowback from people not finding Undo in those context menus anymore?"
"Naw, pretty much everyone knows the keyboard shortcut for undo is Control-Z. They can just use the shortcut. Only a fool wouldn't know that. And we don't care about fools!"
"Absolutely. OK, I'm in. Should there be any kind of warning or explanation for this?"
"No way -- let it be a surprise to the users! More impact!"
"Wow, I can feel those AI engagement metrics going up already!"
"Great work, team! All AI, all the time!"
«"Hey, word is that we really need to up the AI engagement metrics. What haven't we covered yet? [ laughter ]"»
@lauren i hate this is the most obvious scenario. the fucking "engagement metrics".
And as far as I can tell, they didn't even put a control in the settings page to be able to turn it off. At least I couldn't find it.
No regular user is ever going to be able to turn it off - which is probably the point.
Go to "about:config" and search for "telemetry". Somewhere around the 7th result will be "browser.search.serpEventTelemetry.enabled", currently set to true. Click the button to the right to make it false. Close the tab.
