If you’ve been watching 2024 Paris Olympics coverage on NBC and its other networks, you might have seen the Google ad that is making people mad.
It’s called “Dear Sydney.” It depicts a father talking about his daughter, who is a huge fan of Team USA hurdler Syndey McLaughlin-Levrone. So she writes the track athlete a letter about how inspiring she is … but he has her use Google’s Gemini AI to help find the right words to express that.
That’s not great! She should express herself instead of leaning on artificial intelligence, right? That’s what a lot of folks have said on X (formerly Twitter):
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.
— Will Leitch (@williamfleitch) July 28, 2024
The Google Gemini commercial is infuriating. A fan letter from a child is the exact thing we don’t want ruined by AI.
— Ashtyn Butuso (@lil_buts) July 28, 2024
Have you seen Google’s “Dear Sydney” Olympic ad featuring a father using Gemini AI to help his young daughter write a fan letter to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone? It is one of the most disturbing commercials I’ve ever seen. To be clear, I love the idea of a young aspiring athlete… pic.twitter.com/FFohdVBbut
— Shelly Palmer (@shellypalmer) July 29, 2024
my least favorite Olympics ad so far is the one where the Google Gemini AI writes a letter on behalf of a young girl to Sydney McLaughlin. i find that so distasteful and so sad! seems like literally the last thing AI should be used for
— Henry Gargan (@hgargan) July 27, 2024
So a dad uses AI to write a letter from his daughter to her favorite Olympic athlete? When there is an actual children’s literacy crisis in the US?
Google baby ARE YOU OKAY? pic.twitter.com/5tqk4zJTHJ
— Dawn Chambers’ Anger Translator (@shannboogie) July 28, 2024
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
