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Outsourcing emotion: The horror of Google’s “Dear Sydney” AI ad | The company suggests using AI to write a child’s fan letter and the ad is so bad that Google turned off comments for it on YouTube (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A lot of what we do as a society is redundant, but I do think fully written emails or cover letters have merit (even if it's the same template replicated for multiple applications,)

It helps the reviewer understand if you're articulate with your speech, gives them additional context to your resume, and lets them better match applicants with their current work environment.

That said, a lot of the process is still redundant anyways, and considering many hiring processes are now entirely automated, a more concise, standardized method of providing the same information would likely be more manageable and efficient for most people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

There's already too many applicants for every job opening. If you make the process even more automated public job listings/applicants will be sidelined entirely.

My team hired a jr dev a few months ago. The posting got several thousand responses on LinkedIn alone. We noped out of wading through all of those and just went the referral route.