Google's AI-Powered Olympics Ad Sparks Controversy and Debate

Google's AI Olympics ad is drawing jeers online but scores surprisingly well among viewers

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. The ad sparked an online backlash, with most of the disapproval leveled at the premise that an AI assistant could replicate a heartfelt message from a child fan to her idol. Some compared it to a recent Apple spot that was roundly criticized as dystopian and which showed a sample of humanity's greatest achievements being "crushed" into an iPad Pro. "Everything about the premise of this commercial makes my blood boil," wrote Shelly Palmer, the marketing consultant and professor of advanced media at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, on his website. Google has since turned off the comments on the YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 250,000 times. But despite the negative online punditry, Google's "Dear Sydney" is actually hitting the right notes with most viewers, according to data from the ad testing firm System1, which rates TV ads on their potential to drive long-term growth for brands. The ad received a System1 star rating of 4.4 on a scale of 1.0 to 5.9, which the company described as "strong." "It follows a coherent story, focuses on characters with agency and vitality, and prioritizes people over the product," said Jon Evans, System1 chief customer officer, of Google's ad. "Additionally, it champions diversity and inclusion by highlighting women in sports, providing young girls with role models." System1's tracking showed that the ad's human story does "the heavy emotional lifting" and the negative emotional responses only begin to happen when Gemini is introduced to the ad, Evans said. System1 asks a panel of consumers across several countries to indicate how they feel about the ad they're viewing from a list of emotions ranging from contempt and disgust to happiness and surprise. The top three Olympics ads so far in System1's ranking are UK supermarket Aldi's "Has Kevin met his match?" (4.7 stars), Australian insurance company AAMI's "When our athletes are in the making" (4.7 stars), and NBC Sports' "Why is Sabrina in Paris?" (4.6 stars). Maani Safa, chief executive of the marketing agency Poppins, said the backlash to Google's ad is "absolutely unwarranted," but unsurprising given that people have historically resisted new technology due to their fear of change. "This apprehension is rooted in a fear of the loss of control, job displacement, and ethical concerns," Safa said. "However, as society begins to understand and harness these innovations, the initial fear often gives way to acceptance and eventual integration into daily life." Still, several ad experts have said Google's marketing department -- which created the ad in-house rather than using an ad agency -- should have done a better job of reading the room. "It's so tone-deaf it begs the question: Did Google use AI to draft the actual script? And to execute the spot?" said Malcolm Poynton, the global chief creative officer at Cheil Worldwide, Google rival Samsung's global creative agency. A Google spokesperson didn't provide details about the company's future plans for the "Dear Sydney" campaign but pointed Business Insider to a statement it provided earlier this week. In it, the company said its goal was to create an authentic story that showed AI's ability to enhance human creativity rather than replace it. Google Chief Marketing Officer Lorraine Twohill had written on LinkedIn on Friday that the ad was "a beautiful example of how technology can bring us closer to turning dreams into reality." The "Dear Sydney" spot was still airing on US TV on Tuesday morning, according to the measurement firm iSpot. While Google could pull the ad, some creative experts said the company should consider launching related follow-on marketing activity that clarifies its position on AI. Josh Green, executive creative director at the marketing agency House 337, suggested Google acknowledge the feedback and go on to install physical mailboxes around the world "where kids could send their favorite Olympic athletes proper messages of support."

Google Wins the Gold Medal for Worst Olympic Ad

The company suggests using AI to write a child's fan letter. Why? Google is running a new commercial during the Olympics. It's about a cute little girl -- she's a runner, and she loves Team USA's Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a world-record-holding track star who won two Olympic gold medals in 2021. The little girl wants to write her a letter. So Dad fires up an AI chatbot. "Help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone how inspiring she is," he asks Google's Gemini. He instructs it to add a line about how his daughter plans to break McLaughlin-Levrone's world record one day (and to be sure to include the phrase sorry, not sorry.) The ad never shows the final letter in full, just pans over snippets of it. The whole thing is supposed to be endearing, demonstrating to viewers how AI can help forge human connection and facilitate creativity. Isn't what makes a letter like this cute the fact that it is written by a child? Shouldn't a young person get to explore their feelings and then authentically relay them? And what about McLaughlin-Levrone? Will she be able to tell that the letter was written by AI? How would she feel about that? Would she send back her own AI-composed message, thanking the child for taking the time to write to her? Read: The AI industry is stuck on one very specific way to use a chatbot The whole thing is bleak. It takes the feel-good cliché of a child getting to interact with their idol and squishes a multimillion-dollar large language model between them. Google is pitching a world in which even the most personal interactions are mediated by computers. The company may make bold claims about AI's capabilities to radically advance civilization. But it can't escape the reality that it's co-opting the hopeful aesthetics of the Olympics, which are meant to celebrate human accomplishments, in order to promote a digital technology that can be used to undermine human labor. The reaction so far has not been positive. The author Will Leitch said the ad "takes a little chunk out of my soul every time I see it." The professor and media personality Shelly Palmer wrote that it makes him "want to scream." On YouTube, where Google posted the ad four days ago, comments are turned off -- a step that the company does not typically take on its videos, and one that suggests concern about a backlash. When I reached out to Google to ask about that backlash, a spokesperson told me, "We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it. Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA." The ad, which the spokesperson said features a real father and daughter, "aims to show how the Gemini app can provide a starting point, thought starter, or early draft for someone looking for ideas for their writing." Google's marketing team has a tough job right now. The company has aggressively pivoted to a technology that may be dazzling, but that many people remain skeptical of. AI will revolutionize everything, boosters say, but it's still unclear exactly how. Wall Street is starting to wonder whether investments in the technology will actually pay off. To the extent that generative AI is present in everyday life, it's not always on the best terms: The technology has arguably degraded once-reliable search engines, plundered human creativity, and taken jobs. All of which is to say, the reality is far from the sunshine and jump ropes of the "Dear Sydney" ad. Perhaps that's not unusual: For years, Big Tech's marketing has relied on sweet montages of regular people using their tools to skirt the very real problems presented by their products. The likes of Meta, TikTok, and Apple may be able to get away with this framing, because their products do connect people at the end of the day, but generative AI is more about humans talking to a computer instead of one another. (Apple found itself in a similar situation earlier this year with an iPad ad that, accidentally or not, evoked AI's ability to crush art with a machine; Apple quickly apologized and halted plans to run the commercial on TV.) Read: Watch Apple trash-compact human culture Google appears to have misread the moment. The Olympics are supposed to be about humans accomplishing amazing feats in the physical world. While the ad was running this weekend, the American surfer Caroline Marks scored a close-to-perfect 9.43 points out of 10 after dropping into the barrel of a giant wave in Tahiti. The 17-year-old Canadian swimming prodigy Summer McIntosh won her first gold medal for the women's 400-meter individual medley. And the legendary gymnast Simone Biles continued to defy the laws of physics despite an injury. These athletes are indeed inspiring. We don't need a chatbot to tell them so.

What is the Olympics ad by Google that went viral for all the wrong reasons?

An Olympics advertisement has gone all viral for a few reasons, primarily artificial intelligence, which is not being taken in good spirit by traditionalists. This has now become a major point of discussion on social media in recent times amid the Paris Olympics action, that has already begun since July 26. The Paris Olympics 2024 is on and there are tons of discussions around the sporting events and organizing of the opening ceremony. However, one point that has caught the attention of netizens across the world is an advertisement that has landed in a massive controversy. The ad video went viral but for all the wrong reasons and there are certain point as to why. An Olympic ad in context describes Google AI's ability to create TV advertisements. It speaks of artificial intelligence' power of creating human-sounding audio and videos that resemble those high-res advertisement generally seen online or on television. Also Read : Why is Donald Trump losing momentum? Here is why his campaign is lacking the energy However, this ad is not being received well by viewers as it seems quite disconnected and does not have that flair and human touch. Moreover, the video that features a child, is also being questioned about replacing a youngster's creative abilities by a computer's AI features. This is one of the prime examples of AI interference in human creativity and authenticity. This looks like one big aspect Google has missed out on amid the AI race with its competitors like ChatGPT and Llama, with its product Gemini. From emails to searches, Google has incorporated AI in almost everything in its features and even devices and is slowly disregarding the importance of human involvement in technology. Also Read : Teflon Flu: What it is, how to prevent it, and better alternatives you should know Social media users are quite repulsive of the concept of AI-generated advertisements, according to reports. However, Google is of the opinion that AI is indeed important but it cannot entirely replace the human flair in terms of creativity and interface. Has Gemini been incorporated in Google Search? Gemini has already been implemented in Google Search tools. It is an AI model and according to Google, enhances the search experience for users. Can Gemini create ads? Gemini, which is an AI-powered feature by Google, is rapidly evolving and can soon start framing and creating its own advertisements and human-like audio.