I put “AI” in quotes because it’s not really about intelligence at all, people just glommed to the term because it:
- Already existed
- Sounds futuristic
- Sounds high-tech
Google released an ad that has been airing during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics (as an aside, this is the first Olympics that has been known probably as much for its meme generation as the athletic competition) which showed a father helping his young daughter write a fan letter to Olympic athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone–by using Google’s Gemini AI.
The ad (and Google’s defense of “it tested well”) is wildly tone-deaf and a prime example of how people don’t want AI to work. Leave the creative stuff to humans, AI can handle the drudgery. And yet a lot of the big AI push is the exact opposite.
Ars Technica story: Google pulls its terrible pro-AI “Dear Sydney” ad after backlash
In the comments to the above story is the following comment, which resonated with me:
A growing number of people expect the AI bubble to burst, it’s just a question of how soon.
I’m thinking it will be sooner rather than later. We’ll see what happens by the end of the year!
