‘The gold medal for Worst Olympics ad’
A recent advertisement aired by Google during the Paris Olympics 2024 has ignited widespread criticism from all quarters, drawing attention for all the wrong reasons.
What happened?
The commercial showcases a father discussing how his daughter is a runner and huge fan of American Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The ad depicts the young girl training to emulate the achievements of her hero.
Wanting to encourage his daughter, her father uses Google’s Gemini AI chatbot to generate a letter to her from McLaughlin. The prompt: “Help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is. And be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record. She says sorry, not sorry.”
“This is for everyone watching #TeamUSA compete on the world’s stage and thinking, that’s gonna be me someday. You got this, with a little help from Gemini,” Google wrote.
Response:
The commercial has been given ‘the gold medal for Worst Olympics ad‘ by the Atlantic, a sentiment echoed by the vast majority of social media users. Many have criticized the ad for unnecessarily using artificial intelligence rather than genuine human connections and creativity, viewing it as inappropriate and inauthentic.
Viewers have now taken to social media en masse to express their anger at the ad.
“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,” commented Will Leitch, writer and founder of the sports blog Deadspin, on X.
“These people have lost the plot,” another user posted on Threads, who described AI ads as “just mortifying.”
I think we can all agree that the big loser of the #Olympics is the Google Gemini AI ad where they think an AI-written letter is better than a sweet note from a young girl to her favorite athlete.
— Kaitlyn Arford — Freelance Writer (@kaitarford) July 28, 2024
Creepy new Google ad for the Olympics:
“Replace your kid’s personality with AI bro it’ll be awesome bro I swear bro” pic.twitter.com/qOhY0rcerE
— Tetra | ChadFish (@BowTiedTetra) July 30, 2024
This was totally my take as well about Google’s “Dear Sydney” commercial that has aired often during the Olympics. Using AI to outsource important parenting moments is not the way to go. It is totally a slippery slope. https://t.co/0iPr5v5SwB
— Susanne Rosenhouse (@susqhb) July 29, 2024
“Everyone Hates That Google AI Olympics Commercial” https://t.co/3sLPabrJUb pic.twitter.com/HpX9cJMMX3
— trudy (@thetrudz) July 29, 2024
Google has now turned off comments on the widely reviled advertisement.
What does this tell us?
Google’s ad embodies the discomfort many feel with the rise of artificial intelligence and its incursion into every aspect of human and corporate life. The visceral response to the commercial echoes the explosive reaction to Apple’s ad months ago where humanity’s achievements were all smashed into an iPad, proving that tech giants will have to adjust their approach to AI accordingly in order to maintain respect and support by online users.
