Google launched a new AI, and has already admitted at least one demo wasn't real

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/7/23992737/google-gemini-misrepresentation-ai-accusation

by ronron4693 • 3 years ago

76 32 3 years ago

insomagent• 3 years ago

Google is a laughing stock at this point.

natch• 3 years ago

Their spam filter literally marks email sent by Google corporate, email the user asked for and subscribed to, as phishing.

And they can’t understand that I already said “skip” to their offer of TV shows on YouTube. Many times.

And as someone else said, I saw some of the greatest minds of my generation put to work doing ad revenue optimization.

And yet, the ads have never been anywhere close to relevant to me, or my interests, or my purchases or plans or needs at all.

Yes, laughingstock but also… it’s sad.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

Personalized ads are the problem ... not the solution.

prepend• 3 years ago

And yet, the ads have never been anywhere close to relevant to me, or my interests, or my purchases or plans or needs at all.

They’re not trying to do that. They are working to maximize revenue.

I think it’s a myth that their goal is “personalized ads” as that wouldn’t make them money. They make much more money off thousands of impressions with 4% conversion than dozens with 90% conversion.

These dark patterns don’t show lack of knowledge. They just demonstrate that they don’t care and know they will eventually grind you down if they keep asking “do you want fries with that” even though they know you hate fries and are on a diet.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

Yes ... but so is AI.

Generative AI is an attempt to mimic cognitive ability using statistics ... and it always fails at some point. It's cognitive skills are as fake as Google's demo.

AI can drive a car as long as the roadway environment matches certain expected statistical parameters.

But mismatches are inevitable and unavoidable. In the real world, stuff happens. Emergency vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, children, illegal u turns, etc. are all part of the real world environment that can't be predicted.

AI's naive response to unexpected conditions is to slam on the brakes and stop --- which in and of itself creates an unexpected road hazard.

There is too much "A" and not enough "I".

noitpmeder• 3 years ago

Regarding autonomous cars, it'll only make sense once every car is in/on the network and roadways are hermetically sealed. So never.

I really hope governments get their act together and start developing/planning/testing improved public transportation. Trains are already nearly fully autonomous, and just imagine the countless benefits having cities/towns/countries designed around something other than the wasteful self owned car.

The_Colonel2• 3 years ago

Generative AI isn't perfect. It's not really even very intelligent as you say.

But I'm still amazed how much you can do with this very imperfect, unintelligent "AI".

I think we're still at the very beginning of seeing all the possible application. One stiffling factor is the still enormous computation necessary, but that is no doubt going to change.

Teever• 3 years ago

This seems like complete misdirection from the fact that OpenAI has a better product than Google.

crazygringo• 3 years ago

Its stock is still significantly up since the Gemini announcement -- and still not too far from its all-time high -- so the market would definitely disagree.

If you believe in wisdom of the crowds and all...

hulitu• 3 years ago

Google launched a new AI, and has already admitted at least one demo wasn't real

They learned from Android game developers how to make a demo. /s

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

If this is true, this is really really freakin sad, why would they do this?

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

"Don't be evil" was really a warning of intent.

   The Devil went down to Google
   He was lookin' for a soul to steal
   Google was in a bind 'cause they were way behind 
   And willin' to make a deal

spacebacon• 3 years ago

Firebase on the Mountain Run, boys, run! The Google’s in the house of the rising sun

frob• 3 years ago

The did it for the same reason every megacorp does anything: money. Their stock price jumped over 5% when they showed this fake demo. It has since come back down a bit, but it is still up about 3.5%.

Mo3• 3 years ago

Now I'm curious which part wasn't real. My best guess would be on the video interpretation

kfichter• 3 years ago

It's described in the article -- it wasn't a real time conversation, they simply took still images from videos and sent them to Gemini along with a text prompt, and then the resulting responses were trimmed for effect.

seanhunter• 3 years ago

Several parts got my spidey sense tingling. They admitted the duck video was entirely fake - the model was actually fed stills of ducks, then they edited in the video.

The science youtube guy had really strange prompts. It seemed To me like he had tried a bunch of things each time and then they spliced together the ones which worked. Which is …ok? I guess?

The one I watched this morning was the dude with the heavy Italian accent demonstrating multimodal AI by playing the AI sound clips of a woman speaking VERY CLEARLY and precisely and definitely without any sort of accent. So for that one I was like “ok I get what’s happening here” but it seemed super obvious.

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

Lots more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38559582

toddmorey• 3 years ago

I believe they’ll get there eventually, but why demo something that so clearly doesn’t exist yet? I feel this will only serve to set false expectations on features & timelines. I just don’t see the upside. Perverse internal incentives? Straight up temp stock manipulation?

kramerger• 3 years ago

The Verge loves drama. These gotcha-style posts brings them a lot of traffic.

This doesn't need to be malicious. Google has demonstrated similar things elsewhere.

Someone wanted to do a cool video based on the stuff that are working on. The blog posts explain everything in detail if you want to look behind the curtains

Google launched a new AI, and has already admitted at least one demo wasn't real

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