The Peril of Perfection: Google's Gemini Ad and the Cost of Thoughtfulness
In conjunction with the Olympics, Google released an ad featuring its large language model, Gemini. The ad was designed to be heartwarming, depicting a dad narrating his daughter's admiration for Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. This young girl dreams of becoming a hurdler and wants to express her admiration through a fan letter. Her dad, acknowledging his own lack of prowess with words, decides that this time, the letter must be “perfect.” To achieve this perfection, he turns to Gemini, tasking the AI with crafting the letter.
On the surface, this ad showcases the impressive capabilities of generative AI, presenting it as a tool to enhance our expressions. However, beneath this facade lies a disturbing narrative.
The core issue with this commercial is not the technology itself. I genuinely believe that large language models and generative AI are powerful, exciting, and transformational. The concern arises from the way this technology is being portrayed and utilized in the ad. It takes the heartfelt love and respect a child has for a sports figure and suggests that such emotions require perfection, a task now relegated to AI. This approach undermines the essence of genuine human expression, emphasizing the need for flawlessness over sincerity.
Moreover, the ad depicts the father using Gemini to write the letter independently of his daughter, completely excluding her from the process. She doesn't participate in crafting her own message, missing out on an invaluable learning experience. One can envision a scenario where the girl writes the letter herself, imperfect but true to her feelings, or collaborates with her father to refine it, or even has her father write it on her behalf. Yet, the notion of removing human participation entirely reduces this heartfelt act to a mere transaction best handled by a machine.
This portrayal strips the heart, the humanity away from the process. The letter, rather than being meaningful, a link between father and daughter, or even a learning moment, becomes a product. It sends a troubling message: when you want to express yourself, it's trivial; let the machine handle it. This is not a narrative we should endorse.
The whole point of computers in general and AI in particular is not to make us think less, but to help us think better. They should enhance our capabilities, not replace the fundamental human experiences that define us. By putting thoughtfulness into the hands of a machine, we risk losing the very essence of what makes our expressions meaningful.
Google's Gemini ad serves as a poignant reminder of the delicate balance we must strike with AI. It's not about perfection; it's about preserving the heart and thoughtfulness in our communications. Let's strive to use these powerful technologies to think better, not less.
Addendum: Since this writing, Google has pulled the ad for obvious reasons. It does amaze me that, given Google’s marketing/advertising budget, it didn’t occur to anyone on the team to wonder whether or not this was a negative message.
Kristian Hammond
Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science
Director of the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence (CASMI)
Director of the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) Program