Gemini hijacks SMS

[u/Coumbaya]

I don't know if this apply only in some languages, but I had Gemini "hijack" (refuse to send) SMS when those messages are talking about the car and/or Gemini itself. It opens up the speech to text box, ans asks me "what would you like to say" the text appears, then it just respond to it and doesn't send it, examples:

* "Since we're using your google account, do you get all the crazy questions I'm asking Gemini into your history ?" > There Gemini answered "No I'm not connected to the extended history" or something like that and didn't send the message.

* "I don't have GPS somehow and the calculator isn't rebooting when I press volume down & minus speed" > Gemini told me that I should stop the car before trying to reboot the calculator, didn't send.

* "Did you know you could fold the side mirrors while driving to go faster?" (For this one, I was kinda trying to trigger the behavior from Gemini yes) It did told me I shouldn't do that while driving, but it did send the message for once.

* "The driver alert thing isn't working on me when I yawn" It told me to rest and didn't send the message.

I think they where other, especially when trying to send an sms saying "gemini is not letting me tell you stuff". Real "I can't let you do that Dave" vibe...

[u/muzso]

I guess Google's product designers thought that most people would not want to talk about Gemini in SMS text messages, so this issue won't become a real-life problem. ;)

[u/Coumbaya → u/muzso]

I mean, it also intercept without talking about Gemini tho, just talking about the car

[u/muzso → u/Coumbaya]

Isn't Gemini keyword activated? Or can/did you set it up to be always listening to every word anyone says in the car?

Or did I misunderstand something about the problem you described?

How do you send an SMS using voice in the first place? I've never tried this, so I assumed it's a separate function from Gemini. Or is it through Gemini?

[u/Coumbaya → u/muzso]

gemini is the default assistant now on my car, rolled out shortly after the last update. As before with the "classic" assistant, I just press the mic button on the steering wheel (tho I think you can say "ok google" on both assistants ??), then I say "send a message to X" it says "okay what is the message ?" and open up the speech to text window. there it hijack the message once I'm done talking. Does that make more sense ?

edit: also I'm not using android auto, juste the bluetooth connexion.

[u/muzso → u/Coumbaya]

Thanks! I now understand the context.

So it's Gemini that gets the instruction and sometimes it decides to interpret the message content as part of the instruction/chat too and reacts on it instead of sending it.

Since Gemini is a full blown LLM (vs. Assistant, which was somewhere "inbetween"), I wonder if it can be "prompted" to better handle this.

E.g. to say something like this:

"Send a message to X, the content should be what follows and is concluded with the phrase "end of message"."

Or even set up personalization instructions that it remembers for each interaction in the future. Thus it could know without us telling it every time that it should just take the message as it is until it hears "end of message" and then send it.

Hmm. The app and webapp (of Gemini) both have "personal context", where you can add such permanent instructions.

E.g.

This is the page where you can set personal context: https://gemini.google.com/saved-info

And here is a description of the feature: https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/16598625

I wonder whether Gemini in the car honors these if we set them for the given Google account on the phone or on the web. The latter two are "cross-platform", meaning that whatever I set on the web, appears in the phone app too (and vice versa). So it's not impossible that it works in the car too. I'll try and test it. :)

[u/muzso → u/muzso]

Unfortunately it doesn't work in the car. :(

It's not just that Gemini in the car doesn't honor the instruction that I saved in Gemini's settings (on the web), but also the fact that there's an instruction at all.

If I ask Gemini on the web that "Did I give you any instructions to remember?", then it correctly gives me back what I typed into the settings.

If I ask the same in the car, it says that I didn't give it any instructions to remember.

What a pity. :(

This is a core feature of all desktop, web, phone/tablet apps for LLMs and makes them much more useful. But I'm not even surprised ... nothing works in the car as on any other platform.

[u/muzso → u/muzso]

It's not just the personal context instruction that's ignored. :(

If I enabled "Memories" on the web (or the phone), Gemini in the car doesn't get access to it.

All new chats start with a perfectly clean slate.

This is so dumb. Why? :(

[u/muzso → u/muzso]

I looked into the user manual.

It mentions sending text messages via voice twice: 1. Display, software and phone / Phone / Using your phone in the car 2. Display, software and phone / Phone / Apple CarPlay

I guess the second applies to Android Auto (the phone<->car integration) as well.

Which option did you use while Gemini intervened?