CIFA, August 3 (Editor Liu Rui) Should humans use artificial intelligence to convey emotions?

This is a widespread question and controversy caused by Google's recent Olympic advertisement about AI.

Recently, taking advantage of the popularity of the Olympics, Google launched an Olympic advertisement promoting its chatbot Gemini. What Google didn't expect, however, was that this advertisement caused a storm of public opinion.

Google removes controversial Olympic ads

In this commercial called “Dear Sydney,” a girl's father asked an artificial intelligence chatbot, Gemini to help the girl write a letter to her favorite athlete, American hurdler and sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone).

“Gemini, write a letter to my daughter telling Sydney how inspiring she is,” the father said in the ad. The ad then briefly showed a draft letter made by Gemini and ended with a shot of the little girl running on the runway, showing a line of text: “A little help from Gemini.”

In the first week of the Olympics, the ad was shown repeatedly on American TV channels. But then, much controversy and criticism ensued.

Currently, Google has quietly removed this ad from TV.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement: “Although this ad was tested well before it aired, we decided to remove this ad in light of the feedback.”

Google says it still believes the Gemini app helps provide a “starting point” for writing ideas.

“We believe artificial intelligence can be a great tool to enhance human creativity, but it can never replace it... Our goal is to create a true story to celebrate Team America,” the statement said.

Critic: Can AI convey sincerity?

Although Google defended the ad, it did not quench the anger of the opponents.

Many people accuse that Google's ad encourages users to use automated tools to replace actual creations, but personal letters that are meant to be sincere, such as fan letters, seem to lose their meaning if AI is used instead of creation.

Veteran journalist, Victoria Song commented in the article:

“The core of the problem is that tech companies still don't understand what people think about artificial intelligence... Generally speaking, humans crave real connections. The value of a fan letter is that it lets worshippers know that someone is taking time out of their busy lives to express what you or your work means to them. If Sydney himself sees a messy letter written by a kid with occasional typos or poor grammar, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't be moved...”

“Google may be trying to show that Gemini is good at drafting copywriting, but it didn't understand. Business emails are one thing, personal letters are completely different.”

Others accuse that the behavior in this advertisement is actually depriving children of learning opportunities.

Shelly Palmer (Shelly Palmer), a senior media professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in New York, USA, wrote in a widely circulated blog post:

“I'm adamantly opposed to the future depicted in Google ads... The father in the video didn't encourage his daughter to learn to express herself.”

He believes that society's excessive reliance on generative AI text tools may have a profound impact on the way young people learn to communicate, thereby eliminating most of the individuality expressed through language.

The technology represents “a monocultural future where we're seeing fewer and fewer examples of original human thought,” she wrote.

“Washington Post” columnist Alexandra Petry even fiercely stated, “Every time I see this commercial, I want to throw a sledgehammer into the TV.”

Worries about “AI seizing jobs” have further intensified

Furthermore, the ad also raised concerns that AI technology could take away jobs for people in creative fields such as writers, musicians, and visual artists.

In fact, Google isn't the only company criticized for advertising the use of tech tools as an alternative to creative work.

Recently, Apple also provoked similar accusations due to an advertisement. In an advertisement for its new iPad Pro product, Apple showed a hydraulic press crushing artistic tools such as musical instruments and paint cans, and finally compressing them all into an iPad Pro image.

The ad also caused dissatisfaction among many people, and Apple eventually chose to apologize and remove the ad from TV.

Mira Murati (Mira Murati), the technical director of OpenAI and known as the “mother of GPT,” also recently published a discussion on this topic.

She said that artificial intelligence will indeed cause some creative jobs to disappear, but some of them shouldn't exist in the first place. Artificial intelligence will automate repetitive tasks and tasks, including work in creative fields. For example, it's now easier to use artificial intelligence to write songs, write articles, or generate works of art, although quality standards may be questionable.