If you’ve watched any Olympics coverage this week, you’ve likely been confronted with an ad for Google’s Gemini AI called “Dear Sydney.” In it, a proud father seeks help writing a letter on behalf of his daughter, who is an aspiring runner and superfan of world-record-holding hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.
“I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right,” the father intones before asking Gemini to “Help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is…” Gemini dutifully responds with a draft letter in which the LLM tells the runner, on behalf of the daughter, that she wants to be “just like you.”
I think the most offensive thing about the ad is what it implies about the kinds of human tasks Google sees AI replacing. Rather than using LLMs to automate tedious busywork or difficult research questions, “Dear Sydney” presents a world where Gemini can help us offload a heartwarming shared moment of connection with our children.
Inserting Gemini into a child’s heartfelt request for parental help makes it seem like the parent in question is offloading their responsibilities to a computer in the coldest, most sterile way possible. More than that, it comes across as an attempt to avoid an opportunity to bond with a child over a shared interest in a creative way.
If you use binggpt as a translator tool, and put a disclaimer that these are not your own words - kudos, you removed the need for a translator and the latency associated.
However, if you claim that you speak English and use this tool to create a false impression of proficiency, that is just usual lying.
everyone assumes I am talking about taking something chatgpt spews out and using it as it is whereas only the thing I said was to use it as an initial starting point i.e overcoming the blank slate block. When everyone is so horrible in understanding what other people try to convey I assume you wouldn’t lose much if you used chatgpt as it is anyways lol.
Furthermore, lacking proficiency in any language and using a tool to “beautify” a paragraph in said language will generally fail to improve communication, because chatgpt is trying to infer and add information which just isnt there (details, connotations, phraseologisms). Will just add more garbage to the conversation, and most likely words and meanings that just arent yours.
I see your point and can agree in the cases where the tool won’t be available to you, or if there is an intent to deceive.
But to flip the script, I’m pretty good at spelling but even then there are words I fuck up the spelling and it’s caught by a spell checker. Am I a liar for submitting things without pointing out my spelling errors that a computer caught? Or is there a recognition that this is a common tool available and I’ve effectively used it to improve my communication, so this is just standard practice?