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The first clock time I sawGoogle ’s latest commercial message , I wondered , “ Is it just me , or is this kind of bad ? ” By the quaternary or 5th clock time I saw it , I ’d stopped wondering .
It start innocuously enough , with a founding father talking about how much his girl lovesSydney McLaughlin - Levrone(she “ might even be the world ’s number one Sydney devotee ” ) . obviously , she wants to drop a line the Olympic gold medalist a rooter letter and needs her daddy ’s assistant — and that ’s where thing take a turn .
Yup , this is a commercial for Google ’s Gemini AI , so the dad instigate Gemini : “ help oneself my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is and be certain to mention that my girl plans on break her world disk one twenty-four hours . ( She says lamentable , not sorry . ) ”
Now , if you squinch , you’re able to see how this fits into the overall pitch for generative AI — it could be a writing coach or assistant , especially for someone who finds writing unmanageable or daunting . And what could be more daunting than writing a varsity letter to your favorite athlete ?
But it ’s hard to think of anything that communicates earnest inspirationlessthan apprise an AI to tell someone how inspiring they are . for sure , Gemini is just generating a first draft that the Church Father and his daughter will ( hopefully ? ) personalize . But if this happened in realness , Sydney would just terminate up with a elephantine push-down list of nearly identical letter .
Novelist and Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast host Linda Holmes put it more emphatically , writing , “ Obviously there are especial circumstances and people who need helper , but as a general ‘ look how nerveless , she did n’t even have to write anything herself ! ’ story , it SUCKS . Who wants an AI - pen fan letter ? ? ”
Plus , as Holmesnoted , “ A fan letter is a great manner for a youngster to learn to write ! If you encourage Thomas Kyd to ladder to AI to spit out give-and-take because their writing is n’t great yet , how are they presuppose to learn ? ”
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I agree . Sadly , I will never be an Olympic athlete , but conceive it or not , there are ( extremely ) rare occasions when even tech bloggers get complimentary substance . And I wouldmuchrather receive a abbreviated , human - author e-mail that just tell “ YOU’RE GREAT ! ! ” than an in - profundity variant letter of the alphabet that was write by AI .
None of this reaches the level ofApple smashing all of humans ’s achievements into an iPad , but it does suggest some challenges inpitching AI as something usefulfor normal people .
