The first time I noticed Google’s newest industrial, I questioned, “Is it just me, or is this kind of bad?” By the fourth or fifth time I noticed it, I’d stopped questioning.
It begins innocuously sufficient, with a father speaking about how a lot his daughter loves Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (she “might even be the world’s number one Sydney fan”). Apparently, she desires to put in writing the Olympic gold medalist a fan letter and wishes her dad’s assist — and that’s the place issues take a flip.
Yup, it is a industrial for Google’s Gemini AI, so the dad prompts Gemini: “Help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is and be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record one day. (She says sorry, not sorry.)”
Now when you squint, you’ll be able to see how this suits into the general pitch for generative AI — it might be a writing coach or assistant, particularly for somebody who finds writing troublesome or intimidating. And what might be extra intimidating than writing a letter to your favourite athlete?
But it’s arduous to think about something that communicates heartfelt inspiration much less than instructing an AI to inform somebody how inspiring they’re. Sure, Gemini is simply producing a primary draft that the daddy and his daughter will (hopefully?) personalize. But if this occurred in actuality, Sydney would simply find yourself with an enormous stack of almost equivalent letters.
Novelist and Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast host Linda Holmes put it extra emphatically, writing, “Obviously there are special circumstances and people who need help, but as a general ‘look how cool, she didn’t even have to write anything herself!’ story, it SUCKS. Who wants an AI-written fan letter??”
Plus, as Holmes famous, “A fan letter is a great way for a kid to learn to write! If you encourage kids to run to AI to spit out words because their writing isn’t great yet, how are they supposed to learn?”
I agree. Sadly, I’ll by no means be an Olympic athlete, however imagine it or not, there are (extraordinarily) uncommon events when even tech bloggers get complimentary messages. And I might a lot fairly obtain a quick, human-authored e-mail that simply says “YOU’RE GREAT!!” than an in-depth type letter that was written by AI.
None of this reaches the extent of Apple smashing all of humanity’s achievements into an iPad, nevertheless it does counsel some challenges in pitching AI as one thing helpful for regular folks.
