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If you’ve tuned into the Summer Olympics, you’ve likely seen the commercial Google whipped up to promote its “Gemini” A.I., but the internet search giant may have realized it missed the mark based on the route it decided to take after the spot found itself at the center of controversy.
At this point, you won’t find many tech companies that haven’t embraced artificial intelligence with open arms, and most of their marketing departments have been tasked with doing everything in their power to convince skeptical members of the general public they’re missing out by refusing to adopt what has firmly been positioned as The Next Big Thing.
That obviously includes Google, which attempted to go head-to-head with ChatGPT by launching Bard in 2023 before eventually rebranding it as “Gemini” in the wake of a rollout that left a bit to be desired.
Google decided to harness the Summer Olympics to drum up some hype for Gemini with the help of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the American hurdler who serves as the role model for the daughter of a man who turns to A.I. to “help” his child write a letter to her hero.
However, that spot has found itself subjected to a wave of backlash online courtesy of critics who took issue with the message it sends, as plenty of people aren’t vibing with an ad featuring a dad who asks a computer to use A.I. to generate a letter from his young daughter instead of, you know, working with her to foster her education and creativity by helping her figure out how to formulate her feelings with her own words.
Deadspin founder Will Leitch shared that sentiment in a tweet that racked up tens of thousands of likes after he posted it on Sunday, and he was far from the only person who hopped online to express some similar thoughts.
The Google commercial where the dad has his daughter use AI to construct a note to her favorite athlete rather than encourage her to write what she actually wants to tell her hero takes a little chunk out of my soul every time I see it.
— Will Leitch (@williamfleitch) July 28, 2024
It sure seems like Google is aware of the backlash when you consider it uploaded the “Dear Sydney” ad to YouTube after it premiered on Friday but disabled the ability to leave a comment, which is not the case with any of its other recent videos.