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.
Well, some parents sincerely think they give more love by buying some new shiny thing, or, say, using an LLM to write a letter, than they do by just talking.
Imagine a man, autistic but in denial (“I’M NORMAL”) with constant imitation who can’t say a word without looking like a broken toy with clearly fake emotions and refusing to understand that this is not what one does when they show love. When said how that looks they just try harder at imitation or get furious. They don’t understand that sincere emotions do not require effort. If you’re autistic, yours look differently. But if you’re autistic, but terribly afraid of being “not normal” (grown in ex-USSR backwater working-class environment), you won’t accept the possibility and will just try harder to act. That’d be my dad (LLM’s didn’t exist back then, but).
It’s tragic, not necessarily about putting less effort.
And this works for any pain people might try to cover with some technological perceived miracle. Which is why such things are poison which does get inhaled by some even now.