Did you see the TV advertisement on Google Gemini that played during ad breaks from the Olympics?
The advertisement features a father and his little daughter. The father says, “My little girl’s always been a runner just like me. I’ve always thought she was following in my footsteps. But lately, she’s been looking up to someone else.” The father also says that her daughter’s idol is Sydney McLaughlin.
The father requested that Google Gemini help his daughter write a letter to Sydney about how inspiring she is, including a line noting that the young girl plans on breaking her world record.
The advertisement aims to show the Google AI tool’s ability to generate increasingly human-sounding text, a capability the company has said could be used for everything from writing work emails to trip plans. However, the ad has been criticized widely.
People have asked why anyone would want to replace a child’s creativity and authentic expression with words written by a computer.
Someone has posted, “So all three fail: the parent, the child, and the role model Olympic runner. The parent fails by denying the child an opportunity to express her admiration to her role model in her own authentic words. The child is taught, implicitly at least, that shortcuts and hacks are acceptable, and the recipient receives some dull, insipid, warm-spit prose that will mean nothing to her.”
A Google spokesperson said, “AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it.”
“Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA,” the statement reads. “It showcases a real-life track enthusiast and her father, and aims to show how the Gemini app can provide a starting point, thought starter, or early draft for someone looking for ideas for their writing.”
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