Critics, including NPR's pop-culture podcast host Linda Holmes and a Washington Post columnist, expressed their distaste for the ad on social media. Shelly Palmer, a professor at Syracuse University, argued that the ad exaggerated Gemini's capabilities and sent the wrong message to parents. Despite some positive comments on McLaughlin-Levrone's Instagram, where the ad also appeared, Google decided to pull the ad. This follows a similar incident with Apple, whose ad promoting tech's role in creativity also received backlash.
Key takeaways:
- Google's Olympics ad for its chatbot, Gemini, received negative feedback for portraying AI as a substitute for parenting and human creativity.
- The ad, which features a father using Gemini to help his daughter write a fan letter, was so poorly received that Google decided to remove it from its TV rotation.
- Critics, including NPR’s pop-culture podcast host Linda Holmes and a Washington Post columnist, expressed their distaste for the ad on social media, with some users on Reddit's Daddit group describing it as "gross" and "inhuman".
- Despite the backlash, the ad remains on YouTube with the comments feature turned off, and some positive responses were seen on Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s Instagram where the ad also appeared.