Google Pulls 'Dear Sydney' Olympics Ad After Appearing Tone-Deaf To AI Concerns (variety.com) 49
Google has pulled its "Dear Sydney" Olympics ad after it garnered significant backlash. (You can still watch the ad on YouTube, but comments have been turned off.) According to Ad Age, the ad was "meant to promote Google's Gemini AI platform, but viewers had a difficult time looking past its miscalculated storyline." From the report: In the ad, a father wants to help his daughter write a letter to her idol, Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. But instead of encouraging her to take part in such a personal moment, he delegates Gemini to write the letter for her. Viewers and ad leaders lambasted the spot on social media for being tone-deaf. Some were upset over Google evidently seeing no problem with an AI co-opting a formative childhood act, while others alluded to its reinforcing of a more existential fear, that AI is bound to replace meaningful work. The ad got significant airplay during NBCU's TV coverage of the Olympics this week, including on NBC in primetime, as well as on E!, CNBC and USA, according to iSpot.tv. It last ran on national TV around midnight of July 30 on USA, according to iSpot.TV. "While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we've decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation," a Google spokesperson told Ad Age today.
The company earlier this week defended the ad in a statement: "We believe that 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. 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."
The company earlier this week defended the ad in a statement: "We believe that 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. 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."
Videos like this should not have comments off (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I see what you did there.
Re:Videos like this should not have comments off (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw this ad in the wild, and my reaction was this: some day an intelligent agent will decide for a little girl that she should be a fan of a particular athlete and automatically pen and send a fan letter. The athlete's intelligent agent will process this fan letter and generate a personalized response to the little girl, which will be duly received and processed by the little girl's intelligent agent. And all this will take place without the actual girl or the athlete ever being aware the other existed.
To be fair, we are witnessing a struggle to control The Next Big Thing, and often TNBT turns out to be really stupid. That doesn't stop people from making boatloads of money on it.
Re: (Score:2)
Google celebrates proud moment (Score:2)
when this young woman learns how to use Google apps to cheat on her homework for school?
Different Wierdness (Score:2)
I saw this ad in the wild, and my reaction was this: some day an intelligent agent will decide for a little girl that she should be a fan of a particular athlete and automatically pen and send a fan letter.
My reaction on seeing it was who the heck sends fan letters to athletes? Is that a thing now? Really? As for the ad it was like almost all ads today - some mindless drivel from a company trying to persuade you to use/buy some uselss and/or overpriced product.
Re: (Score:2)
Google should me made to read the backlash and learn from it they made the poop sandwish time to eat up
Did AI write this, or are you having a stroke?
Re: (Score:2)
I have a feeling (Score:2)
AI is going to fuck everything up.
Re: (Score:3)
AI is going to fuck everything up.
People using AI are going to fuck everything up -- even more than they do now.
Re: (Score:2)
And in any case what validates "AI", what makes it "intelligent" is that it's trained to ape what *humans* say. It's like The Who's song "Won't get fooled again" says: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Re: (Score:2)
AI is going to fuck everything up.
That would just be AI doing its job: Helping humanity accomplish its goals faster than they could on their own.
Red Pill (Score:5, Insightful)
The energy requirements are outstripping current capacity and impacting global warming. The world economy is being distorted, with companies like NVidia with valuations that are hallucinatory, just like the output of LLM models. Chip manufacturing is including AI acceleration hardware in machines that will never use it. Whatever utility AI/LLM systems might have, the unnecessary resources allocated to them dwarf whatever return they could generate.
It's a global scale exercise in mass stupidity and the impact will be terrible. The sooner it fails the better off everyone will be.
Re: (Score:3)
Google saw ChatGPT as an existential threat (and the entire media was saying it too) and are desperate for any feature edge over Apple to offset the fact that being an advertising company is increasingly making it impossible for their ecosystem to compete. Microsoft's consumer side is in a similar boat. It has no complete ecosystem, their strategy to design consumer windows API and GUI wise is disastrous and fixing either is pretty much impossible.
They saw AI as a lifeline to get a little ahead of Apple, un
Re: (Score:2)
*Internet of Things, anyone? Virtual reality goggles? iPhone umpteenth? We can't just allow electric cars to eventually be the majority on their merit, they must instead be mandated, whether sensible for all
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever utility AI/LLM systems might have, the unnecessary resources allocated to them dwarf whatever return they could generate.
This is trivially nonsensical. If AI tomorrow comes up with some insane new physics cold fusion / vacuum / antimatter energy source that is problem free and cheap to build, it will 200% have been worth the investment.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it is going to. Just that your statement is nonsense. The market seems to believe that AI R&D will indeed have a positive ROI and it might very well.
It's a global scale exercise in mass stupidity and the impact will be terrible.
The only mass stupidity is thinking that it will go away. This ad might seem tonedeaf now, but I guarantee
TF WaPo article (Score:4, Funny)
Hands with six fingers? :)
Clearly she is not familiar with AI
Defended their ad by contradicting it? (Score:5, Insightful)
We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it.
Okay, but ...
In the ad, a father wants to help his daughter write a letter to her idol, Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. But instead of encouraging her to take part in such a personal moment, he delegates Gemini to write the letter for her.
So having AI write the letter for her isn't replacing her human creativity?
Re: (Score:3)
I know what happened... (Score:2, Funny)
Some very smert marketing executive decided to save a few bucks on ad agency fees and said, "Dear Gemini, please make an ad for an AI platform to run during the Olympics that features a family and the athlete they admire."
Watching that Ad (Score:3)
Watching that Ad was like staring into the black abyss that is Zuckerberg's soulless eyeballs. All tech companies today are freaking creepy, especially those dealing with search, social media, and AI.
Re:Watching that Ad (Score:5, Insightful)
It's possible the scenario at least was generated by an AI. It has all the uncanny valley hallmarks of an AI written story. It accurately extracted common narrative elements from heartwarming stories and seamlessly wove them into a script without having any actual understanding of what makes humans tick.
Re: (Score:2)
It's possible the scenario at least was generated by an AI. It has all the uncanny valley hallmarks of an AI written story. It accurately extracted common narrative elements from heartwarming stories and seamlessly wove them into a script without having any actual understanding of what makes humans tick.
It wasn't until after I read what you wrote that I identified the creepy feeling the video gave me as an 'uncanny valley' moment. In retrospect the whole thing smacked of trying to simulate humanity and not quite succeeding.
Good call - I think you may have discovered a dark secret which Google probably doesn't want us to know.
Re: (Score:2)
"While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we've decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation," a Google spokesperson told Ad Age today.
So, after it was generated by AI, it was also screened and reviewed by AI, or the executives aren't any smarter, insightful, or emotionally competent than AI.
What a time to be alive.
Re: (Score:2)
It's possible the scenario at least was generated by an AI. It has all the uncanny valley hallmarks of an AI written story. It accurately extracted common narrative elements from heartwarming stories and seamlessly wove them into a script without having any actual understanding of what makes humans tick.
NOTE: This could also be written by a marketing executive. I've worked with plenty that pull the uncanny valley stuff when trying to write a touching, human story. They don't much seem capable of connecting to their inner human. Kinda like the machines. Hmm.
Backlash? (Score:1, Troll)
Who cares.
Its some cheeto-smelling degenerate leaving a comment.
I could care less what anyone "types" on the Internet.
As far as I'm concerned, you don't exist, your opinions don't matter, and I'm already bored.
Re: (Score:2)
Posting this to cancel my moderation.
Other than the moderations underrated and overrated, I'm still not sure how the other ones work. I moderated your comment redundant and the moderation went form 1 Troll to 0 Troll.
Re: (Score:1)
you forgot to refer to the content of my post:
i don't care about your opinion
Re: (Score:2)
"you forgot to refer to the content of my post"
No I didn't, I found it redundant but not deserving of a -1.
"i don't care about your opinion"
?
The next generation is screwed! (Score:3)
The world might not end, but the world might be a better place if children gain the ability to express their thoughts in a sincerely written letter (without AI and without a grammar checker).
Re: The next generation is screwed! (Score:3)
Gemini: Making up for the failure of our public school system since 2030.
Seems like more manufactured "outrage"... however (Score:2)
The entire concept seems mind-blowingly dumb. It's hard to imagine a father caring even a nit for his child and somehow still concluding "I'm not gonna be involved, I'll just tell her to use an AI to do it".
It's like something that'd be part of the background "setting the scene" story from some science-fiction story set in a dystopian future.
Side note - if you want evidence supporting the stereotype of engineers being socially awkward and possessing few social skills, this can be used for that. Google's lea
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, but imagine being on the other side. Imagine there being zero chance your favorite star, congressperson/staff, or other correspondent reads your message because they are so inundated with AI-generated communications. Imagine the age of two-way communication being over.
It would be like Tinder.
Re: (Score:3)
Well then, the next logical development would be LettR - an app which lets politicians and other famous people swipe left or right on letters to decide which to read!
Think I'll go trademark that right now...
"while others alluded to its reinforcing of a... (Score:3, Insightful)
more existential fear, that AI is bound to replace meaningful work"
If an AI has done it, it is by its nature, not meaningful work.
Meaningful work has a resulted in a person fulfilled by the process of doing it to their satisfaction and receiving joy from the appreciation received form those that benefit from it being done to their satisfaction; even if all the people involved are the same person.
Re:"while others alluded to its reinforcing of a.. (Score:4, Insightful)
For many people, doing a BS job with zero meaning that supports their family is still a meaningful act to them, and it's healthier for them than collecting a welfare check.
Return Youtube Dislike (Score:1)
The Fact (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I consider myself to be a tech person. I actually love AI and I read and listen pretty much all I can get from it. Especially interviews about Deepmind.
But I still think that was a dump as hell. Google should have put an add about AlphaFold 2 and AlphaFold 3 as that would make people understand that Google is the real leader in the AI research.
Or if they really want to make it about Gemini, make it translate human written letter to an autistic person or help autistic person make a letter more human readable
Re: (Score:2)
Few of us here - least of all "the smart people" - give a rat's ass about some Magic-Sky-Daddy conspiracy-theorist shill fantasizing at mind-numbing length that the devil was behind the Olympic opening ceremony. Oh no! Satan is among us! Gimme a break...
Not all bad... (Score:1)
hapless marketers (Score:2)
The poor marketing people. Google said we want an add that ties our AI to the Olympics. The poor marketing people. Uh, maybe an ad showing how AI can help competitors outwit the drug tests? Uh, no. Well, we can't think of anything. Now, wait... here's an idea...